

■Jf"" '" nm|) ywyv'—'B 



AA/ORK'S 



DIALOGUE 



WITH 



Henry George, 



BY 

P. M. SUTTON 
1887 




Copyrighted. — Entered accordina: to Act of Congress with Libraian, at 
Washins^ton, D. C, A. D. 1SS7, by P. M. Sutton. 



Marshalltown, Iowa: 
Marshall Printing Company, Printers. 

1SS7 



TO 

Harriet Leverton Sutton, 

WHO 

Induced Its Writing, 

THIS 

Economic Dialogue 

IS 

Affectionately Inscribed 

BY 

Her Husband. 



PROLOGUE 



CAUSES GROW. 

OW strangely causes grow. 'Tis all a 
growth, and yet there is a destiny. How 
wondrous strange came Liberty. And yet, in 
all its ways there was a course and purpose that 
showed divine direction. For centuries and 
centuries, Liberty hardly dared to speak, and yet 
it lived. It hid its head, but its heart still beat, 
and its soul still grew with fond desires. Re- 
ligion denounced it. Tyranny threatened it. 
Still it lived. Hope, though blindly, still in- 
spired it and made it feel a promise that it could 
not see. Thus inspired, it struggled on. It 
grew and found a place in the common heart of 



PROLOGUE. 5 

mankind. At last it dared to speak. It was 
heard, and its voice was heeded. At Runny- 
mede a King hailed Liberty! Six centuries ago 
beneath the blue arches of EnMand's skies, the 

o 

spirit of Liberty was formed into living shape 
and given its freedom. Freedom of life and of 
property was made the chartered guaranty of 
the King. Now it could breathe aloud. It could 
raise its voice. It could move. It could use its 
hands. It could inspire mankind. For full four 
centuries, and more, it had the freedom of the 
realm. Still it was not satisfied. It had no place 
to rear its temples. It had no place to call its 
own. It had no home. At last new inspiration 
came. It lifted men. It made them look, they 
knew not where. It made them see, they knew 
not what. It made them move. Into the sea! Into 
the coming winter! Into the dark beyond ! God 
was there. Beyond was home. Through all 
the centuries; yes, through all the ages. He had 
kept a virgin home for Liberty. Securely, He 
kept it in patient and sacred waiting. Waiting 
at its birth. Watching its sleep in the cradle of 



6 PROLOGUE. 

life. Cheering the joys of its childhood plays. 
Guiding the course of its youthful love. Reach- 
ing His hand to the full grown man. 

Welcome! Oh, what a welcome! How warm 
was that Decem.ber day! How animate Old Ply- 
mouth Rock ! Hugged by the land, and kissed 
by the seas, it throbbed with love as it gave 
America to be forevermore a home to Liberty. 
Joyous Liberty ! God has given thee a place to 
be thine own ; a place to rear thine altars ; a 
home. As He has done to thee, his faithful 
child, do ye even so unto thy faithful children. 

Home ! America ! The gladdest w^ords that 
tongue can speak; the sweetest songs that soul 
can sing. 



Part 1. 



A GEORGE GOVERNMENT FORMED. 



TRIED AND PROVEN. 



REMARKABLE RESULTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

A CONFERENCE WITH MR. GEORGE. 

HAVE read Progress and Poverty, Mr. 
Georo-e. It is a o-reat work. It marks an era. 
If I understand it rightly I desire to help you. 
There are some things in it on Taxes that I don't 
quite understand. 

You believe in using Taxes with which to work 
reforms. I want to confer with you on that sub- 
ject. You believe that "great changes" can best 
be brought about under *' old forms." I took 
this from your book. Now tell me, please, in 
plain language, just what reforms you propose to 
accomplish through Taxation, and how you pro- 
pose to do it. Make it very plain, please, and 
make it very simple to a common comprehen- 
sion. I desire to understand the inmost idea of 
your philosophy. 



lO WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

George. — "I propose to raise wages; increase 
the earnings of capital ; extirpate pauperism ; 
abolish poverty ; give remunerative employment 
to whoever wishes it ; afford free scope to human 
powers ; lessen crime ; elevate morals, and taste 
and intelligence ; purify government, and carry 
civilization to yet nobler heights." 

Work. — That would, indeed, be a great reform. 
I do not see a single purpose but appeals to the 
highest and best impulses of the human heart. 
There is nothing evil, but everything of good in 
what you undertake. The poor who suffer may 
lift their eyes in hope. All who long for a purer 
life or a better government, can see the sign of 
better days. Crime is to be repressed. Morals 
elevated. We are to be given a more refined 
taste. A higher intelligence and a grander civil- 
ization. The mere contemplation of such pros- 
pects makes men think better of the world. I 
will join you. Tell us how all this is to be done. 

How TO BE Done, 

George. — " I propose a simple yet a sovereign 
remedy — to appropriate rent by taxation. We 
already take some rent by taxation, we have 



THE GEORGE PHILOSOPHY. I I 

only to make some changes in our modes of 
taxation to take it all. It is not necessary to 
confiscate land ; it is only necessary to confiscate 
rent. Let land owners continue to call it their 
own land. We may safely leave them the shell 
if we take the kernel." 

Woi^k. — I see you have it just as it is in your 
book. I cannot remember all the o'lorious re- 
forms you propose, but I do recall some of them. 
They cheer the heart and fill the soul. What 
prospects we do contemplate ! Raise wages. 
Extirpate pauperism. Abolish poverty. Lessen 
crime and raise morals. Now, how will putting 
all taxes on land abolish pauperism and lessen 
crime ? How can one idea embrace so many 
purposes ? How can one remedy cure so many 
diseases ? The remedy to be so universal must 
be possessed of some wonderful substance. Its 
like was never known before. 

George. — *' When all is taken by taxation, for 
the needs of the community, then will the equal- 
ity ordained by nature be attained. No citizen 
will have an advantage over any other citizen, 
save as is given by his industry, skill, and intelli- 
gence ; and each will obtain what he fairly 
earns." 



12 work and compensation. 

Picture of a George Heaven. 

Woj^k. — I see, you have it again as it is in 
your book. What will be the final outcome of 
all this ? 

George. — '' Words fail the thought. It zvill be 
the Golden Age of zuhich poets have S2ing and high- 
raised seers have told in nietaphor. It is a glor- 
ious vision which has ahvays haunted meii zvith 
the gleams of fitfil splendor. It zvas zvhat he sazv, 
zvhose eyes at Patmos, zvere closed i7i trance. It is 
the ctihnii'iatio7i of Christianity — the city of God 
on earth zvith its zvalls of jasper and its gates of 
gold. It is the reign of the Prince of Peace!' 

Work. — Again I see you have it just as it is in 
Progress and Poverty, Mr. George, that is 
very beautiful. Little could be added. It fills 
every desire. It is the substance of every hope. 
It is a perfect picture of every fond ideal of the 
human soul. None are so poor but it will help 
them. Poverty in rags and want is often made 
to feel a deeper sense of things, and helped to 
see diviner sights. The suffering soul can read 
those words and then thank heaven. Men, who 
long have sought to see a better way and a 
better world, can behold in these, your beautiful 



DELIGHTFUL PROSPECTS. 13 

lines, a prophecy. The Christian pilgrim, worn 
down in fighting the battles of the Cross, and 
who is weary in waiting, can read this joyous 
prospect and see the second coming of his Lord. 
Poets can read this vision, and these gleams 
of fitful splendor, and be inspired. Artists can 
behold the city of God, the walls of jasper, the 
gates of pearl, and then paint pictures that shall 
never die. The earth will now look greener, its 
fruits taste much sweeter, its summers will be 
morebalmy, it winters will be warmer, and the 
heavens will be brighter than they have ever 
been before. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FORMING OF A GEORGE GOVERN- 
MENT. 

AM deeply moved, Mr. George. I will do all 
I can, and faithfully, to help you. Let us go 
right at work. Let not one moment be delayed. 
I feel a deep desire that must be gratified. I 
am filled with a wonder that must be satisfied. 
Now the first thing in forming a new administra- 
tion is to make estimates and present a Budget, 
that is, a statement of estimated receipts and ex- 
penditures. This we ought to do. Until we 
make such an estimate we cannot tell how much 
of the entire revenue will be needed for ex- 
penses, nor how much will be left to apply in 
satisfying other needs of society, such as ''extir- 
pating pauperism and poverty." We can quite 
easily make this estimate, for we can get from 



MAKING CALCULATIONS. 15 

the Tenth Census the necessary items of ex- 
pense, also the amount of improved land. We 
will multiply the acres of land by the price of 
rent, and that will be our estimated receipts ; 
we will add the expenses of the Nation for a 
year, to expenses of the States for the same 
time, and that will give us our estimated expen- 
ditures. By subtracting the necessary expendit- 
ures from our total of receipts, we will have the 
balance that can be employed in "extirpating 
pauperism and poverty." Now, you may take a 
pencil, for you are a mathematician, and I will 
take the Census, and we will figure this thing 
out. 

Making a Budget. 

What part of each farm shall we confiscate ? 

George. — Only that part which is left after al- 
lowing the owner full pay for all improvements. 
My whole plan is based upon the idea that the 
naked land belongs to the public, and, therefore, 
the public has a right to confiscate it. The im- 
provements, however, belong to the persons 
who make them, and in confiscating the land we 
must be sure that the right to improvements is 
sacredly guarded. Where there is any doubt 
give the owner the benefit. 



i6 



WORK AND COMPENSATION. 



Work. — Very well. We will figure this out 
very quickly. I see by the Census, that all lands 
occupied as farms, amount to 536,081,835 acres, 
of which, 284,771,042 acres are tillable. I see 
that the whole number of farms is 4,008,907, 
having a total actual value of 110,197,096,776. 
Therefore, an averag'e American farm has 134 
acres, of which 70 acres are tillable, and which 
is worth $2,549, or $19 per acre. Now we will 
figure the cost of ordinary improvements on an 
ordinary average farm of 134 acres, with 70 
acres tillable. The first item is the breaking of 
the 70 acres at |2 an acre, $140. Then there is 
an orchard of 100 trees. In money and labor 
they cost |ioo. Put the fences at $200, the barn 
at I300, and the house at |8oo, miscellaneous 
improvements, such as wells, tiling, vines, etc., 
|iio. This makes even $1,650. 

Improvements Too Low. 

George. — I think you have valued the house 
and the barn too low. Eight hundred dollars 
would not build me a decent barn, and I300 
would hardly more than build a dog house. 

Work. — That is true. But you live in the city. 
Dwellings and barns, and all kinds of buildings 



FARM IMPROVEMENT. I 7 

in cities and towns, are much more expensive, 
and much better, than people generally enjoy on \ 
farms. The average farm is worth but $2,560. 
So buildings must be moderate. We have put 
the improvements moderately low, I am sure. 
Perhaps the majority of farmers have better im- 
provements. Still there are some who don't 
have as o-ood. 

George. — Now, what part of the value does 
this leave to the naked land ? 

Work. — About one-third. 

George. — That is about what I thought. Many 
have criticised my policy who supposed I in- 
tended to take farm, improvements, and all. I 
simply propose to take the naked land, which 
will be about one-third of the value of all farms. 
That value was created by the public and, there- 
fore, belongs to the community, and in confiscat- 
ing it the commonwealth gets its own. 

Work. — That all seems very reasonable. 
There are many farms on which the improve- 
ments cost more than the farms would sell for. 
A large part of the farms of this country 
have cost more in labor and improvements, 
than they would sell for in the market. Especi- 
ally is this true in the Eastern and Middle States, 



i8 



^ WORK AND COMPENSATION. 



where the farms were chopped out of the forests, 
/ and where even then, the soil had to be made 
out of a surface hterally covered with stones. 
I do not at all doubt but that all our farm lands 
have cost, in labor and improvements, more 
than two-thirds of their present market value. 
Still we will count improvements at two-thirds. 
Now we have a definite rule, so far as farm lands 
are concerned. We will now make our calcula- 
tions. First we will compute on the farm lands. 
We want to tax that part belonging to the pub- 
lic so that the owner will pay thereon a fair rent. 
He will then be using his own improvements on 
a rented farm. He will thus be secured, as you 
direct he sacredly shall be, in the property which 
is solely the work of his own hands. This will 
be in fact rentino- land in "such manner as to 
sacredly guard the right of private improvement," 
which is one of the fundamental ideas of your 
grand philosophy. 

Renting of an Average Farm. 

Now what would a fair rent for the whole of a 
farm of 134 acres with 70 acres tillable? Now a 
dollar an acre on the whole piece would be near- 
ly two dollars an acre for the tillable land, and 



AN AVERAGE FARM. I 9 

nearly 6 per cent, on its actual value. It seems 
to me that we ought not to go above that rate. 
Two dollars an acre is very fair rent for tillable 
land in any locality; and in many places and for 
many qualities of tillable land it is very hig-h. A 
dollar an acre, however, on all lands will make 
an easy computation and will be a very fair rent- 
al value. If we could tax all lands for their full 
value, at a dollar an acre, it would give us I536,- 
081,835. Only a third of this, however, belongs 
to the public, therefore, we can only tax that 
third and can only get as a revenue, one-third 
of that amount, which makes $178,693,945. 
This eives us all the revenue that will arise from 
a confiscation of rents on farm lands, after de- 
ducting the improvements which belong to the 
owners. We can figure this another way, and, 
perhaps, it will make it plainer. A farm of 134 
acres, with 70 acres tillable, would rent for I140, 
at $2 an acre for tillable land. One-third of this, 
or 146, would belong to the government. Now 
there are 4,008,907 farms, and at $46 each, they 
would give us just $184,419,722. This way gives 
a little more. Still I think the other figures are 
as high as we ought to put rents, taking the whole 
country through. 



20 work and compensation. 

Other Real Estate. 

We now come to the valuation and taxation 
of city lots and blocks, manufactories, machine 
shops, mills and mines. We must make a new 
estimate of improvements. Improvements on 
this class of land are much greater in proportion 
to the value of the land than in farm property. 
The land in cities and towns has no value except 
its use for building purposes. The principal 
value is in the superstructure. As we have be- 
fore remarked, on farms, buildings are com- 
paratively cheap. In cities and towns the im- 
provements are much more elaborate and 
therefore much more expensive. I am of the 
opinion that there is more than twice the com- 
parative value in city improvements as in farm 
improvements. At the very centre of a great 
city, building lots may have a fabulous value. 
There the value of the naked lot may more 
nearly equal the value of the superstructure. As 
you leave the business centre, however, the dif- 
ference increases, and in the residence portion 
of a city a 1 10,000 improvement is often made on 
a $1,000 lot. I think at any rate it would be 
safe to say that the naked land value in cities 
and towns is not more than one-fifth of the ag- 



COUNTING UP EXPENSES. 2 1 

gregate value of land and improvements. All 
kinds of real estate including mills, manufactor- 
ies, distilleries, business blocks and city resi- 
dences are valued at $9,881,000,000. All mines 
are valued at 1781,000,000. Adding the mines 
we have a total value of kinds of real estate out- 
side of farms, and amounting to 110,662,000,000. 
You see it is "nip and tuck" between farms and 
other kinds of real estate. Farms, however, be- 
cause of cheaper improvements, and greater land 
value, Avill yield us a greater revenue. The 
naked land value in this last $10,000,000,000 can- 
not be counted more than $2,000,000,000. We 
will tax this value, which belongs to the pubHc, 
at 6 per cent. That will make^ this rent about 
the same rate that we have placed on farm val- 
ues, and will give us a revenue of $120,000,000. 
This added to our revenues from farms will give 
us the enormous annual revenue of $298,693,945. 
This is indeed a great sum, and if properly and 
prudently expended, can be made to do a world 
of good. 

Counting Expenses. 

There will be, of course, some expenses that 
will have to be paid out of this revenue before 



2 2 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

we can expend it in the "extirpation of pau- 
perism and poverty." It will be impossible to 
cut down very materially, the present expenses 
of o-overnment. Our schools will have to be 
maintained, the poor houses kept up, the cities 
cleaned and supplied with water and light, 
roads will have to be kept in repair and many 
new ones constructed. It would be an endless 
task to determine the amount needed for all these 
necessary expenses in every State, and territory, 
and county, and township, and school district, 
except that Gen. Francis A. Walker, with whom 
I believe you are acquainted, has done all this 
work for us. Excepting machinery, he is the Ri- 
cardo of America. You will find it all tabulated on 
page 25, Vol. VII., Tenth Census. In the aggre- 
gate these necessary expenses are 1312,750,721. 
This does not include our national expenses. 
Last year these expenses amounted to $260,226,- 
935. These expenses cannot be curtailed to any 
great extent at present. Adding these two sums 
together will give us our estimate of the neces- 
sary expenses for the coming year. Now we 
have all the data necessary for the formation of 
a Budget : 



THE BUDGET. 23 



The George Budget. 



Now here Is our Budget. 



Estimated Receipts. 



Taxes on all farm lands, at $1 an acre, mak- 
ing about ^2 an acre on all tillable lands, 
and about 6 per cent, of actual value, after 
deducting all improvements ^178,693,945 

Taxes on ground value of all other real estate, 

at 6 per cent, of actual value 120,000,000 

Total ^298,693,945 

Estimated Expenditures. 

National expenses, same as last year ^260,226,935 

State, county, city, town, school, poor house, 
road, and other taxes, in States and Terri- 
tories 312,750,721 



Total expenditures ^572,977,656 

Recapitulation. 

Total receipts $298,693,945 

Total necessary expenditures 572,977,656 



Deficit first year $274,283,711 



CHAPTER III. 
GREAT TROUBLE. 

GEORGE. — Is there not some mistake in our 
figuring ? 
Work.— If there is, we can readily find it. 
The total value of all kinds of taxable real 
estate, together with improvements, is worth in 
actual value, about $20,000,000,000. There can 
be no possible doubt but that two-thirds of this 
value, even in farm lands, is in the improvement 
which labor has put on the land. Nor can there 
be any doubt but what a much greater propor- 
tion of all other kinds of real estate, or the 
value thereof, is in its improvements. We could 
not, by any reasonable calculation, compute the 
value of the improvements of the entire |20,ooo,- 
000,000 at less than #15,000,000,000. That, under 
your theory of government, would leave but 
15,000,000,000 belonging to the public. I .say 



FARMERS REBELLION. 25 

that lands in this country, less improvements, are 
not worth $4,000,000,000 ; but we will count it 
$5,000,000,000. Six per cent, on this $5,000,000,- 
000 would give us an annual revenue of $300,- 
000,000. This would give a little more than half 
enough with which to pay the necessary ex- 
penses of government. My friend, we are 
brought face to face with immutable facts. We 
have taxed the whole country the last dollar we 
can tax it. under your theory of government, 
and here we are, at the end of the first year, 
over a quarter of a billion behind on expenses. 
We have taxed all farm lands a dollar an acre. 
This has made the tax about $2 an acre on all 
tillable lands. In order to get out of debt next 
year, and be left in anything like a respectable 
financial condition, we will have to tax all tillable 
farm land at the rate of $6 an acre, and city and 
mining real estate in the same proportion. 

The Farmers' Rebellion. 

This failure in our revenues is only a small 
part of the trouble upon our hands. The farm 
owners all over the country, are in rebellion. 
They have figured this thing out. They have 
found that in this country there is over $43,000,- 



26 "WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

000,000 of wealth. That they have only $10,000,- 
000,000, or less than one-fourth of the entire 
amount. They also find that they have only 
one-half of their distributive share of wealth. 
They have 12,500 to a family, while the people 
living in cities and towns have $5,000 to each 
family. They now see that we are trying to rob 
them, and that we are doing so in the interest of 
$20,000,000,000 of wealth in moneys and chattels 
belonging to speculators. They are becoming 
convinced that we are a set of scheming scoun- 
drels, bent on robbing them of their homes. 
They are preparing to defend themselves. There 
are 4,000,000 of them. 

Ropes and Shotguns. 

They are buying ropesand shotguns. They 
are hanging our tax collectors to the trees. 
We are getting in a worse condition than was 
ever seen in Ireland. In the midst of all this 
trouble, the poor are pounding at our doors. 
They want us to "extirpate pauperism and 
poverty." The poor crying women and little 
moaning children are hanging to our coat tails, 
and begging for shelter and bread. Then 
there is another trouble. Our confiscation 



MR. GEORGE BUSTED. 27 

of rent has, in no wise, repressed existing 
wrongs. Jay Gould is robbing railroads, the 
Bulls and Bears are slashing prices, railroad mana- 
gers are squeezing people, distilleries are making 
whiskies just the same, and the saloonkeepers 
are dealing it out. All this robbery is going on 
with no more reference to rent, than the winds 
upon the ocean. Thieves are prowling the 
country. Burglars are blowing open safes. 
Robbers are waylaying their victims. There is 
a perfect anarchy everywhere. Everything 
seems to be incited to desperation by the rebel- 
lion we have on our hands. How are we to put 
this rebellion down ? 

No Way Out. 

We have no money. Our only source of 
revenue is armed against us. Where can we 
get an army ? The rich will not fight and 
never would. You can't o^et wao-e labor to 

o o 

help rob these farmers. They would sooner 
help confiscate the money and the chattels of 
the rich. So you see there is no source from 
which w^e can draw troops. There is no 
earthly source from which we can draw revenue. 
We have no allies ; we have no friends. Every 



28 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

one doubts us and despises us. We have lost 
both the P'oodwill and the confidence of mankind. 
We are out of money ; and without an army. 
We have a rebelHon on our hands and have no 
means, nor troops, with which to put it down ! 
Mr. George, zve are busted ! 

The Real Picture. 

Let me see ! How was that beautiful descrip- 
tion you gave of the place to which your methods 
would lead us ? It was like the beautiful picture 
with which Claude Melnotte deceived the fair 
Pauline. Where have gone those gleams of fit- 
ful splendor, the walls of jasper and gates of 
pearl ? Where are those beautiful things that 
were seen by Him, whose eyes were closed in 
trance, at Patmos ? How easy it is to dream of 
fond delights and wake to find but misery. Let 
me change your beautiful description. Let me 
transpose its similes. Let me write it upside 
down and turn it wrong side out. Here it is : 

Words fail, and thoughts confuse the mind ! 
It is the Dark Age of Rapine and of Murder ! 
A hair-raisino^ vision zt^hich men have zuith snakes 
in their boots. What He saw on the mountain top 
zvhen the Devil lied to Him. It is the culmination 



THE IMMOVABLE ROCKS. 29 

of madness ; the land of confusion, with prison 
zvalls ; the reign of the Devil on earth ! It is 
Destruction, Death, Damnation ! ! 

Look at this description, and then at what 
surrounds us. Does it not far more accurately 
describe the situation in which your government 
has placed us, than your gilded picture of vision- 
ary prospects ? 

George. — It does seem so. I guess I started 
out before I made my reckoning. I sailed a sea 
that none before had ventured. I had no chart, 
and I had no compass. I met an unexpected 
breeze. It brought a storm that raised the waves 
so high I could not ride them. They drove me 
on the immovable rocks. My ship, it appears, is 
stranded ; and /, // seems, am busted I 



o 



CHAPTER IV. 
SOURCE OF WEALTH. 

GEORGE. — Tell me, have I been s 
wrong ? And is it true that rents on 
all land values, counting out improvements, will 
not pay our ordinary expenses ? If that is so, 
then I am done, and my great book is but a 
farce. This cannot be. Whence comes the 
wealth ? Whence can it come save from the 
ground ? 

Work. — Your whole mistake is in that thouofht. 
You keep your eyes upon the ground. The 
ground is but one element of production. You 
may call it a machine. 

Rent in Bread. 

A farmer hires a machine, that is, he rents 
an acre of land. It costs $2. He hires an- 
other machine, a plow and team, to plow the 



RENT AND BREAD. 3 1 

land. That costs $1.50. He hires another 
machine, a seeder with a team, and seed, to 
seed it. That costs $2.50. He hires another 
machine, reaper and binder, to harvest it. That 
costs $1. He hires another machine to thresh 
it. That costs $1. He hires another machine 
to grind it into flour. That costs $3. Then 
he hires another machine to knead it, and 
still another to bake it into bread. That costs 
much more. Now it is in food, the cheapest 
and most common kind of wealth. Eight ma- 
chines have been employed. 

First. An acre of land. 

Second. A plow. 

Third. A seeder. 

Foui'th. A reaper. 

Fifth. A threshing machine. 

Sixth. A mill. 

Seventh. A kneading machine. 

Eighth. A bake oven. 

The use of each of these machines will aver- 
age as much as the use of the land ; and there 
has been a laree amount of labor we have not 
counted at all. The farmer raises twenty-five 
bushels of wheat. It makes, at least, 1,000 
loaves of bread — the plainest kind of food. 



32 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

This bread is worth |ioo. Rent forms but two 
per cent, of this most common kind of wealth. 

Rent in Milk. 

A milkman owns thirty cows. He rents a 
forty acre pasture. It costs him $80. This for 
the season would be 35 cents a day. The milk- 
man's cows, each day, give 400 quarts of milk. 
He sells it readily for 5 cents a quart. In all he 
gets $20 a day. This costs much hard labor — 
late to bed, early to rise. Many hands must 
milk at morn and eve, and all the day is occu- 
pied in peddling through the town. Here is the 
simplest kind of food. The gentle cows eat the 
grass that grows upon the hills and drink the 
water from the brook. At evening and at morn- 
ing the dairyman gets all the wealth in milk. In 
this most simple kind of wealth, which comes 
each day from out the ground, rent is not a fifti- 
eth part. 

Rent in Beef. 

One and a half acres orows a calf. In three 
years it makes a beef. The rent is $9. This 
beef, when served as food, makes 400 steaks 
worth 35 cents a piece. This make I140. Be- 



RENT AND CLOTH. 33 



sides these steaks this beef furnishes loo pounds 
of roasts, worth when served, $25. Then be- 
sides the steaks and roasts, the beef furnishes 
100 soups. These soups, when served as food 
at say ten plates each at 10 cents each plate, 
will bring $100. In food alone, the beef brings 
I265. This, however, is not all. We have still 
the hide, the hair, the horns and hoof and tal- 
low. The hide makes a set of harness worth 
$35. The horns make handles for a hundred 
knives, and the hoofs make many a bottle of 
Peter Cooper's glue. Leaving out all save food 
and hide, we have I300. Again you see in all 
this common, every day wealth, rent forms 
hardly a thirtieth part. 

Rent in Cloth. 

So a farmer with a bit of ground and a sheep, 
may make a fleece of wool. This fleece, un- 
washed and as taken from the sheep, is worth $2, 
Half of this is rent. Now we follow this dollar's 
worth of rent — this fleece of wool. It goes to 
the carder, the spinner, the weaver, the dyer, the 
dresser, and, then to the tailor. Now it would 
take a small farmer's whole crop of wool to 
buy it. 



34 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

An Irish peasant, beneath his window, sows a 
bed of flax. It grows and its warm blue blos- 
soms look like Irish eyes. Finally it ripens. It 
makes a bundle of stocks. They yield a hand- 
ful of fibre. It is bleached, and hetcheled, and 
spun. It is woven, and fitted, and worn. What 
grew 'neath peasant's window is now the white 
robe of a saintly father. It is now worth many 
a dollar, and, of rent, there is scarcely a penny. 

A negro with a mule, a plow, a hoe, and a 
little patch of ground, raises two pounds of cot- 
ton. He gins it and presses it, and mails the 
packet in the postoffice, to an eastern spinning 
mill. It is only a handful of raw cotton. It is 
worth a trifle, and of that trifle, rent forms the 
smallest part. The spinner takes the packet 
from the mails and spins it into threads. Now 
it has some value. The weaver takes it next 
and makes a piece of cloth. Now it has two 
values. Then the finisher take the cloth and 
bleaches it, and dresses it, and stamps it in 
bright and beautiful colors. Now it is worth 
several values. Finally, the modiste takes the 
cloth, with its wondrous texture, its lovely de- 
signs and beautiful colors, and fits it to some 
graceful form. It is now a pretty dress and may 



RENT AND WHISKEY. 35 

be worth $5; and, in this common dress, the 
rent is scarcely a nickle. 

With a mulberry tree and some silk worms we 
make a few cocoons. They bring a song. We 
take them to the filature, and, once in skeins, 
they bring a price. Artistic fingers take the 
threads and work a lace, and, now, they brino- 
a fortune. All the rent in that lovely lace is not 
worth a snap from the fair fingers that made it. 

Rent in Whiskey. 

A farmer with a horse, a plow, and a quarter 
of an acre of land, may grow ten bushels of 
corn. It is worth $2.50. The rent is 50 cents. 
The distiller takes it and makes a barrel of 
whiskey. Now it is worth $50. The saloonman 
makes it into cocktails. Now it brings |200. 
The rent would scarcely more than buy enough 
cocktails to treat the farmer and his neighbors. 

Land is the source of all sustenance, but you 
are wrong when you say it is the only source of 
wealth. Wealth is every production that satis- 
fies our desires. Sustenance, though a necessity, 
is but one of a million of natural desires. An 
acre of land planted in potatoes, will furnish sus- 
tenance for a whole family. The animal needs 



36 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

sustenance. Man, however, is supremely more 
than animal, and sustenance is but the beginning- 
of his desires. 

Land a Machine. 

My friend, where all are free, and men have 
brains, rent is bid a bagatelle. Land is only one 
of many good machines. 

George. — Land a machine ? God made the 
the land ! 

Work. — God made the wood, the iron, and the 
materials that make up the machine. 

George. — But man made the machine from raw 
materials and gave it all its money value. 

Work. — So man made the farm from raw ma- 
terials and gave it all its money value. 

George. — The machine wears out and has to 
be replaced. 

Work. — So does the soil. 

George. — The land will exist forever. 

Work. — So will machinery. 

George. — Man may inherit land. 

Work. — His brother may inherit gold. 

George. — The land yields rent. 

Woi^k. — The gold a greater interest. 

George. — Land gains a public value. 



RENT ONLY HALF ENOUGH. 37 

Work. — So do all things else. 

George. — In land there grows a common 
wealth. 

Work. — And from all the common wealth 
farmers secure but half their share. 

Rent Makes But Half Enough. 

In all, we create each year about $5,000,000,- 
000 of wealth. Of this one-tenth is needed to 
run our schools, to keep good our roads, and 
pay all other necessary public expenses. Of 
all this wealth, we thus create each year, land 
rent, aside from improvements, could make 
hardly more than a twentieth part. Land 
rent alone, if all our lands were rented, with 
private improvements all deducted, would pay 
little more than half our necessary expenses. 

Georg-e. — "To be or not to be, that is the 
question ! " If to be so quickly done for, what 
was all this ever begun for ? Why came those 
dreams of splendor ? Why saw I those walls of 
jasper ? What put in my brain the picture of 
the beautiful city ? What was it that told me 
rent would reform the thief and put down gam- 
bling ? Strange world, and stranger are the 



38 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

powers that make and unmake people. Yester- 
day the world knew me as a prophet ; to-day, I 
am done for, and, forever. 



Part IL 



LOOKING OVER THE RUINS OF A 
GREAT NATION. 



SOME SERIOUS REFLECTIONS. 



FINDING THE FALLACIES OF A FALSE 
PHILOSOPHY. 




CHAPTER V. 

SOBER REASONING. 

Y FRIEND, let us sit down together and 
look over your philosophy, and find 
wherein it is at fault. It seems to me that you 
have caught your inspiration from other coun- 
tries where landed wealth grinds and oppresses 
the poor. The real problem you seek to solve, 
is the humanization of wealth. In the working 
out of this problem, great good must come. In 
attempting, therefore, its solution you are en- 
titled to great credit. The mistake you have 
made has come from your failure to find the op- 
pressive wealth of this country. The character 
of wealth is not American. Its character has 
been given it by kings. About all the kingly 
character that is left in America, is displayed in 
our wealth. It retains all its royal nature and is 



42 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

the same as when it came here from the lands of 
kings and princes. 

The Character of Wealth. 

Wealth has always been a courtier and a pro- 
tege of nobility. It apes royalty. It seeks 
power. It builds castles. It dresses in gorge- 
ous robes. It courts homage. There are many 
grand exceptions, but this is the rule. Now this 
wealth, in the old kingdoms and empires, is, as a 
rule, in lands. This has come because wealth 
there has aped the nobility that, at one time, 
owned all land. There is some little wealth in 
this country, of that character and, so far as we 
can, we should discriminate against it. 

The oppressive wealth of America, however, 
or its greatest part, is not in land. Let me show 
you how this is. We had in 1880, 143,000,000,- 
000 of wealth. Ten billion dollars were in farms 
on which were living 20,000,000 of people, hav- 
ing as a distributive share of wealth, I500 each, 
or about 12,500 to each family. Among these 
20,000,000 of people, all, or nearly all, are fairly 
well supplied with the comforts of life. The 
people are intelligent, industrious, prosperous 
and happy. About $3,000,000,000 of all our 



DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 43 

wealth is invested in 3,000,000 ordinary houses in 
cities and towns, in which Hve 15,000,000 of 
people. They are laborers and traders. Now 
we have counted 35,000,000 people and about 
113,000,000,000 of wealth. The other $30,000,- 
000,000 are distributed among the other 15,- 
000,000 of people as follows: First, in ele- 
gancies that sneer at labor; second, in monopo- 
lies that enslave it; third, in wealth that is hid- 
den away as a miser hides his gold. 

How Wealth is Distributed. 

Think of this, my friend. A little over one- 
fourth of the people have nearly three-fourths of 
all the wealth, and use it to humiliate and op- 
press the balance of the country. Think of this. 
One in four has $25,000; the other three, $2,500 
each. This one uses his tenfold wealth to 
humiliate and oppress the other three. This is 
America. In England, the eldest born inherits 
the wealth of the whole estate, but he is charged 
with providing for the whole noble family of 
which he is the head. There wealth is made to 
feel a responsibility. In America wealth knows 
no responsibility. It is too generally a heartless, 



44 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

tyrannical outlaw that debases its owner and 
curses the world. 

We have divested ouselves of kingly influen- 
ces only by degrees. The Revolution freed us 
from the English Crown. The Rebellion relieved 
us of local despotism. About all the kingly 
character we now have left is in this 130,000,- 
000,000 that humiliates and oppresses the poor 
with its royal power. Thirteen billion dollars 
of capital are invested in farming, manufacturing, 
and mining, which produce annually over $4,000,- 
000,000 of wealth. The other $30,000,000,000 
are employed in humiliating and oppressing the 
creative industries of the country. 

The True Aim. 
Now, my friend, we want to devote ourselves 
to this kingly wealth and find some way to hu- 
manize it, that it may prove a greater blessing to 
those who have it, and a more general blessing 
to mankind. I want to go with you all over the 
effects which must follow from your policy of 
confiscation. I beg you to be patient with me, 
for I do most sincerely desire that you shall see 
the truth of this matter, in order that you may 
direct your great powers toward the accomplish- 
ment of practical and beneficent results. 



DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 43 

wealth is invested in 3,000,000 ordinary houses 
in cities and towns, in which hve 15,000,000 of 
people. They are laborers and traders. Now 
we have counted 35,000,000 people and about 
$13,000,000,000 of wealth. The other $30,000,- 
000,000 are distributed among- the other 15,- 
000,000 of people as follows: First, in ele- 
gancies that sneer at labor; second, in monopo- 
lies that enslave it: third, in wealth that is hid- 
den away as a miser hides his gold. 

How Wealth is Distributed. 

Think of this, my friend. A little over one- 
fourth of the people have nearly three-fourths of 
all the wealth, and use it to humiliate and op- 
press the balance of the country. This is 
America. In England, the eldest born inherits 
the wealth of the whole estate, but he is charged 
with providing for the whole noble family of 
which he is the head. There wealth is made to 
feel a responsibility. In America wealth knows 
no responsibility. It is too generally a heartless, 
tyrannical outlaw that debases its owner and 
curses the world. 

We have divested ourselves of kingly influen- 
ces only by degrees. The Revolution freed us 



44 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

from the English Crown. The RebelHon reheved 
us of local despotism. About all the kingly 
character we now have left is in this $30,000,- 
000,000 that humiliates and oppresses the poor 
with its royal power. Thirteen billion dollars 
of capital are invested in farming, manufactur- 
ing, and mining, which produce, annually, over 
14,000,000,000 of wealth. The other 130,000,- 
000,000 are employed in humiliating and op- 
pressing the creative industries of the country. 

The True Aim. 

Now, my friend, we want to devote ourselves 
to this kingly wealth and fmd some way to hu- 
manize it, that it may prove a greater blessing to 
those who have it, and a more general blessing 
to mankind. I want to go with you all over the 
effects which must follow from your policy of 
confiscation. I beg you to be patient with me, 
for I do most sincerely desire that you shall see 
the truth of this matter, in order that you may 
direct your great powers toward the accomplish- 
ment of practical and beneficent results. 



CHAPTER VI. 
UNJUST DISCRIMINATION. 

ET me show you the effect your plan of 
J confiscation would have on two different 
races of our American people. 

Jew^ and Gentile. 

We will take the Jew and the Gentile ; not for 
the purpose of making any invidious distinctions 
between two races, but because one is largely a 
race of land owners and the other is not. The 
Jewish people are expert in trade. They excel 
in traffic. Their wealth is in gold and goods. 
It is always ready for a good bargain. Our 
Gentile people are far more largely land 
owners, farmers, and manufacturers. As a race 
they are producers. They are no wealthier 
than our Jewish people. As a race I think 
they are not so wealthy. They have put their 



46 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

money in lands and in factories. They are 
helping to develop the country and its indus- 
tries, and thus contribute to the general wel- 
fare and prosperity of all. 

Inexcusable Injustice. 

Now, can you say to me or to the country, 
that these farmers and these manufacturers are 
not entitled to just as fair and generous treat- 
ment as our Jewish people ? If so, then you 
can readily see that it would be inexcusably 
and wickedly unjust to confiscate the hard- 
earned wealth of the farmer and leave the 
wealth of the Jew untouched. The Jewish 
people have given to the world many of its 
greatest men ; and, by the way, it gave us one 
great economist — David Ricardo — whose Jew- 
ish instincts enabled him to see, more clearly 
than any man of his time, the true methods 
necessary to the success of the English 
nation. While never refusing a good bargain, 
they are, as a rule, prosperous and happy, and 
be it said to their credit that a Jew is seldom an 
object of public charity. They love wealth, its 
power, its pomp, and its pleasures. I think, 
however, that as a race they would spurn and 



LAND OWNER AND MONEY LOANER. 47 

refuse the unjust advantage that your poHcy of 
taxation would give them. In a similar manner 
you will see that everywhere, and in every line 
and kind of business, your philosophy discrimi- 
nates against the best wealth of the country and 
in favor of the worst. 

Land Owner and Money Loaner. 

Now, my friend, if you think the comparison 
between the Jew and the Gentile a strained 
one, let us take a more common illustration. We 
will take land owners and money loaners. You 
may select the locality. Take any city or county 
East, West, North or South ; take any of the 
country towns in the Middle or Western States. 
Who are the land owners and who are the 
money loaners ? If you will walk down the 
streets of any of these country towns with me I 
will point out to you the two classes. This is a 
bright, warm morning. Everything is cheerful, 
everything pleasant. Do you see that team; a 
good solid team ; it is hitched to a good, strong 
wagon. It belongs to the brawny-handed, hon- 
est-faced gentleman in the front seat. The hearty 
looking, happy-faced woman sitting with him is 
his wife. The two good looking girls in the back 



48 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

seat are his daughters. They have come to 
market. They have twenty dozen eggs and a 
100 pounds of butter. It is the net product of 
their cows and their poultry for a month. This 
man is a land owner. He has a 160 acre farm. 

The Other Side. 

Now let us look at the other side. There on the 
corner you see a magnificent block. That is the 
First National Bank. Do you see that magnifi- 
cent palace on yonder commanding eminence, 
with its deer parks and its drives ? That is 
where the president of the bank lives. Look 
down this broad way. There in that fine red 
brick, with its cupola, its porticoes, situated in 
that beautiful lot, with walks and flowers and 
fountains, is where the vice-president lives. Then 
look again on yonder hill. See that less preten- 
tious, but still beautiful and commodious and 
large white house, with its green blinds and the 
red barn, the tall cedars, the green lawns. That 
is where the cashier lives. Many of these fine 
residences, you see scattered elsewhere about 
the town, are occupied by the directors of this 
bank. All this wealth is in plain sight. It is 
only a small part, however, of the wealth they 



Lx\ND OWNER AND MERCHANT. 49 

really own. The president is said to be worth 
a half million. The officers and directors are all 
so wealthy that they enjoy every luxury and 
pleasure that money can buy and still lay by 
thousands and thousands of dollars every year 
out of the increase of their wealth. Not one of 
them ever gathered an egg or made a pound of 
butter, or did a day's work at manual labor. Not 
one of them ever created one dollar which they 
enjoy, or which they hoard and hide away. And 
yet, my friend, you have so brooded over the 
wrongs the people of other countries suffer, 
and so overlooked the wrongs of your own 
countrymen, that you are absolutely lost to 
American conditions. You would rob this 
farmer of his home and let these money loan- 
ers go scott free. 

The Land Owner and the Merchant. 

If you think the comparison between the land 
owner and the money loaner to be in any way 
exceptional, we will take a still more common 
one. Look, if you please, at the land owner 
and the merchant. Take any average county in 
any state. You will find about 2,000 farm 
owners. You will find nearly the same number 



50 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

of lot and home owners in towns. You will also 
find about 200 merchants, including every class 
and kind. All these people have helped, each 
in his own way, to develop the country. The 
farm owners have produced the greater part of 
the wealth. The merchants, however, have far 
more than their due proportion of this wealth. 
Their houses are better furnished; they ride in 
better carriages; they drive better horses; they 
wear better clothes ; they have more leisure; 
they afford their children better opportunities. 

Opportunities Compared. 

The farmer's daughter goes to the country 
school and, if bright, she becomes a school 
teacher. The merchant's daughter goes to the 
city and learns music, painting, and all the finer 
accomplishments. The farmer's boy studies 
arithmetic, reading and writing, and becomes an 
intelligent laborer. The merchant's son studies 
lancruag-e and looic and traffic, and becomes an 
accomplished financier. Now admit the neces- 
sity of these two classes. Admit also that 
each has earned, and honestly, his wealth. Still 
is it not very plain that the farmer is as much 
entitled to his wealth as the merchant, and 



NATIVE AND FOREIGN BORN. 51 

would it not be very unjust to make the farmer 
pay taxes for both ? Would it not be folly and 
madness to take the farmers' lands and not the 
merchants' o-Qods ? 

Native and Foreign Born. 

My friend, here is another feature of your plan 
that I think you have never considered. Two 
men are born the same day, one in America, the 
other in Germany. Each lives in his own coun- 
try till forty years of age. They both make 
money and buy land. The American owns a 
12,500 farm and so does the German. We will 
suppose, now, that your theory of taxation is 
adopted in this country. The German farmer 
immediately sells his farm, puts the $2,500 in 
his pocket and comes to America. He settles 
right beside our American farmer. He rents a 
farm of the same kind that the American owns. 
He pays as rent of the land value of his farm, a 
sum equal to the tax that the American farmer 
pays on his own land. Each one has the same 
benefit and each one pays the same price. The 
American, however, has nothing whatever aside 
from the farm. The German has the same kind 
of a farm and also the value of his Germany 



52 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

lands with which to outdo his American neigh- 
bor. Thus the American farmer would not only 
be robbed of the value of his bare land by his 
own country, but would be made to compete 
with a foreigner who has more money. An iron 
monarchy would be more just and generous to 
the Germans, than your America to an 
American. Farmers in all other countries could 
then sell their farms and come here and secure 
an advantage over 4,000,000 American farmers, 
wronged and robbed by the land of their birth. 
The destruction of Rome by Nero, if he did de- 
stroy it, was not more inexcusable than would 
be the destruction of sacred rights which this 
plan of yours would surely work. The Golden 
Palace, Nero built for himself, upon the ruins of 
Rome, was like the fortunes that unscrupulous 
speculators would everywhere make, out of the 
demoralizing effects of such a plan. While 
promising to lead the people into a better life, 
you would only lead them into greater hardship 
and suffering. 




CHAPTER VII. 

PRIVATE RIGHT IN LAND. 

Y FRIEND, what led you to think of 
confiscating land, more than any other 
wealth ? 

George. — Because "natural justice can recog- 
nize no right in one man to the possession and 
enjoyment of land that is not equally the right 
of all his fellows — there is no power on earth 
that can grant a private right in land." Man is 
entitled to what he makes. His creations are 
his own. God made the land as He made the 
air and the water. That, therefore, belono-s to 
God, and not to man; and man can no more 
usurp ownership over land than over air or 
water. 

Work. — This, my friend, seems very reason- 
able, and to one limited by a narrow philosophy, 
miofht seem true. 'Tis for this reason I have 



54 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

desired to explain these matters to you. There 
is very much that is hke this in all your reason- 
ing*. Now I want to show you how entirely and 
absolutely wrong you are. I want to show you 
that there is not the least foundation to base 
this plausible theory upon. You are so certainly 
wrong that you cannot help but see it, and if you 
are the honest man I believe you to be, you will 
admit it. God made the world. This far we 
agree. For whom did he make it? He made 
it for man. To whom did he give it? He gave 
it to mankind. For what purpose? For their 
use. How shall they use it? As they may 
agree among themselves. 

God Not a Tyrant. 

You see, my friend, that God is not a tyrant. 
He has made men after His Own image. He 
has left them as free as Himself, in all matters 
within their control. The use of the earth for 
their own benefit, is within their control, and 
they are left free to use it as they may agree. 

The use of land is all that ownership implies. 
No one can appropriate anything more than the 
use of any part of the earth. One man may 
change the form of a part; a nation may change 




CHAPTER VII. 

PRIVATE RIGHT IN LAND. 

Y FRIEND, what led you to think of 
confiscating land, more than any other 
wealth ? 

George. — Because "natural justice can recog- 
nize no right in one man to the possession and 
enjoyment of land that is not equally the right 
of all his fellows — there is no power on earth 
that can grant a private right in land." Man is 
entitled to what he makes. His creations are 
his own. God made the land as he made the 
air and the water. That, therefore, belongs to 
God, and not to man; and man can no more 
usurp ownership over land than over air or 
water. 

Work. — This, my friend, seems very reason- 
able and to one limited by a narrow philosophy, 
miofht seem true. 'Tis for this reason I 



54 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

have desired to explain these matters to you. 
There is very much that is Hke this in all your 
reasoning. Now I want to show you how entirely 
and absolutely wrong you are. I want to show 
you that there is not the least foundation to base 
this plausible theory upon. You are so certainly 
wrong that you cannot help but see it, and if you 
are the honest man I believe you to be, you will 
admit it. God made the world. This far we 
agree. For whom did he make it ? He made 
it for man. To whom did he give it ? He gave 
it to mankind. For what purpose ? For their 
use. How shall they use it ? As they may 
agree among themselves. 

God Not a Tyrant. 

You see, my friend, that God is not a tyrant. 
He has made men after His Own Image. He 
has left them as free as Himself, in all matters 
within their control. The use of the earth for 
their own benefit, is within their control, and 
they are left free to use it as they may agree. 

The use of land is all that ownership implies* 
No one can appropriate anything more than the 
use of any part of the earth. One man may 
change the form of a part; a nation may change 



FREE AS AIR. 55 

the face of a country; and a generation, the face 
of the world. The precious metals may be 
brought to the surface, and the surface itself 
may be changed; but after the man, the nation 
and the generation have come and gone, they 
have not added or taken from the world, even a 
single atom. This use of land is made a private 
right, by all men releasing their common in- 
terest and giving it to the individual. Thus 
every man has a private right to his horse, to 
his house, to his children. All that title conveys 
in anything, or to anything whatever, be it lands 
or goods, is a quit claim from the balance of 
mankind. This can be given to the use of a 
field of land to one man, his heirs and assigns, 
forever, as well as to the use of a horse or a 
cow. 

As Free as Air. 

I read in your book, these words: "The 
equal right of all men, to the use of land, is as 
clear as their equal right to breathe the air." 
Let me explain how absolutely unreasonable is 
this proportion which, at first, seems so very 
plausible. 

This proposition, in its plain meaning, would 



56 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

prevent any nation from occupying any part of 
the globe, except in common with all the other 
nations of the earth. There could be no such 
thing as nations, at all. English, French, Ger- 
man, Turks, and Chinese, would be wandering 
up and down the face of the earth, breathing the 
same free air and trying to dig with the same 
freedom, a living out of the ground. Mr. 
George, you absolutely misconceive what is 
meant by private property in land. 

Common Consent. 

By common consent the different nations 
wisely occupy separate parts of the earth. 
Each nation's authority over its own separate 
part, is that nation's private right. In precisely 
the same manner the people of free nations 
agree, among themselves, to occupy separate 
and distinct tracts of land. They have a right, 
not only to do this, but they may also agree 
that this private right of occupancy may be 
made absolute, and that it may be bought and 
sold as other rights. 

The right of private occupancy and use of 
land must be conceded. We cannot use land as 
we breathe the air. We must have separate 



COMMON CONSENT. 57 

fields to plow and sow, and separate pieces of 
land on which to live. So you see you are 
fundamentally wrong. You have caught a high- 
sounding aphorism and have mistaken it for an 
axiom. Many a man has accepted the saying, 
''There is no God," and narrow reasonino- lead 
many to accept it as true. Greater breadth and 
sounder reason show both its untruthfulness and 
its unworthiness. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
HOME. 

GOD has given the birds and beasts a love 
for that which leads them toward a family 
life. He teaches them to seek the privity of 
home. They all seek, for the purposes of their 
young, a private place from all the world. The 
bear appropriates a hollow tree in which to rear 
her cubs. The wolf a hole in which to rear her 
whelps. Reptiles, even, appropriate some private 
place unto themselves, in which to rear their 
young, and they all defend this privity against the 
world. God teaches the bird to take a mate and 
find a secluded place, and there to build a nest, 
— a home, — and there, with its mate, to live apart 
from all the flock, and rear its birdlino-s. 

In man, the Great Creator, has made this same 
love a ruling passion. We bend all other forces 



SEPARATE, PERMANENT HOMES. 59 

to serve this ruling love. Man, however, cannot 
rear his child in a season. He seeks a wife, not 
for one summer, but for life. He builds a house, 
not for one child, but for all. This love, that is 
made temporary in the brute, is perfected in 
man, and becomes a part and parcel of his 
whole life. 

The Ideal Home. 

He wants a part of the earth which God 
gave him and the rest of mankind, and of 
which there is an abundance, set apart to him 
and to those he loves; a place large enough for 
a house in which to live, and a field broad 
enough on which to subsist; a place where he 
may plant some trees, and cultivate some vines, 
and sow some flowers. He wants a place which 
the world concedes to him and his family, for 
their private occupancy and use. A home that 
he can feel, is sacred to himself, his family, and 
his God. A place where not even the state, or 
nation, nor any earthly power, shall molest his 
rightful occupancy without his leave. A God 
given home. Nothing short of this permanency 
and this security, can give a home, the charm 



6o WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

that every true man desires his home shall have. 
This much all mankind should seek, and grant. 

Other Countries. 

In other countries where kings and noblemen 
have usurped all lands and the great multitude 
are refused separate places, then, and there, they 
may, in terrible desperation, feel there is no 
human right in land. Still were they to think, 
they would know that their suffering comes from 
being themselves denied a proper right in land. 

Here, in our own America, the multitude have 
homes, and we should help all to secure them. 
Three out of four farmers, own their farms. Let 
us help the fourth to a farm. Fully three out of 
every four — of the 10,000,000 — American fami- 
lies, own their homes. Let us help the fourth to 
a home. America can now give every family 
200 acres of land. If half farm, and the other 
half manufacture and traffic, all can now be 
bountifully supplied. Let us hold to all we 
have that is good, and assail that, only, which is 
bad. 



CHAPTER IX. 

TWO MILLION LABORING HOME 
OWNERS. 

WANT you to sit down close to me, my 
friend. I want to tell you something, Mr. 
George, that is true. I want you to hear me. I 
want to reach your great heart with a tale that 
is true. There are 2,000,000 poor laboring men 
who are praying to God to-night, that you may 
see them. They have wives and little ones that 
they love better than their own lives. By close 
saving and very hard work they have bought little 
homes of their own. Their labor seems lighter 
now since they secured those homes; they don't 
have to move any more; they don't worry when 
at work for fear some landlord may intrude upon, 
and harass their families. They go home with 
lighter hearts when the day's work is done. 



62 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

They have a prouder place to go to. Look at 
that laboring- home owner! He is just at his 
own gate; he is just coming home from work. 
See the' little darling that comes to meet him; 
see his little daughter; isn't she beautiful? Eyes 
of Heaven's own; beautiful tresses, soft and 
light. Her lips — Oh see her clasp his neck! That 
pays him. In they go. Did you ever see more 
happiness ? He holds her on his knee. *' Papa," 
says she, "you love me ?" "Yes, darling, I love 
you." "And, you love mamma?" "And you 
love our home ? " "Yes, papa loves our home." 
Even that little child feels proud that they own 
a home. There are 2,000,000 just such homes. 
They are all these poor men have. Could they 
have this little, in anything better ? Why quad- 
ruple the tax on these poor men's homes and 
take the tax off the millionaires' crold ? 

Mr. Georp^e, these 2,000,000 fathers, with their 

o 

wives and little ones, kneel every night and pray 
that no such robbing schemes as yours, may 
ever curse their homes. Hear, I pray you, these 
prayers. Let them touch your great heart. 
Then turn your face to the real enemy, and let 
these poor home-owners alone. 



CHAPTER X. 
LEASEHOLD RIGHTS. 

GEORGE. — It is not my purpose to interfere 
with the home. I have abandoned my 
first idea that land can be used Hke the air. I 
have also abandoned the idea that there is no 
power on earth that can grant a title to land. I 
concede now that there must be a rio-ht to the 
separate use of land, and that to properly divide 
its use, there must be an ownership, and this 
ownership must be given exclusive right and 
title, in order that the land may be properly con- 
trolled and divided. I now propose that this 
ownership and title shall be given to the gov- 
ernment, and these lands shall be "leased to 
highest bidders on such conditions as will 
sacredly guard the right to private improve- 
ments." 



64 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

Work. — You can now see how easy it is to 
be carried away with some glowing thought and 
then upon reflection, find this thought barren 
and impracticable. You were very emphatic 
and enthusiastic in declaring there was no power 
on earth that could give a private right to land, 
and that its use should be as free as the air we 
breathe. My friend, this ought to teach you a 
most valuable lesson. Upon those who are 
given the power of eloquence there is placed a 
grave responsibility. 

Led Into Error. 

Your eloquent words have led thousands 
into deep error who now must be humili- 
ated to see you compelled to abandon the 
high sounding positions you so eloquently as- 
sumed. You must temper your eloquence with 
reason. Be sure that which your eloquence in- 
spires leads in the right direction. You have 
very much improved your ideas, and I desire 
now to show you that the same reasons which 
have compelled you to abandon your first two 
fundamental principles, must also drive you to 
abandon the idea of a leasehold interest. Why 
must a man have a leasehold right to the field 



LED INTO ERROR. 65 

he cultivates ? Because he will not plow and 
sow unless he knows that he will be permitted 
to reap. This has driven you out of the air, out 
of the idea of universal common use of land. 

It has driven you to accept the policy of a field 
for each man. 



CHAPTER XL 
CROPPING IS NOT FARMING. 

YOU seem determined, however, to stop 
short of fee-simple ownership. You, 
therefore, stop with a single crop. This you 
must also abandon, because cropping a piece of 
land and then leaving it, is not best for the land 
nor for him who crops it. In order to secure 
the best return from cultivation, the farmer must 
have the land a series of years. He must replace 
the soil and wait on successive crops to yield 
him recompense. The most profitable and 
healthful kinds of produce are fruits. To grow 
fruits, the farmer must plant trees and cultivate 
them a series of years before they yield him any 
recompense. He must also be permitted to 
rotate his crops, and to plan his fields with refer- 
ence to his horses and his cattle. This requires 



CROPPING NOT FARMING, 67 

also a series of years. He must also plan his 
fields, his orchards, his house, with reference to 
his children, whose growing strength each 
year, gives him a greater amount of help. Now 
you will see that all these plans which are neces- 
sary for the most profitable use of land, can be 
best consummated under a fee-simple title. Thus 
a fee-simple title will be better for the farmer 
while he lives. But this is not all. There are 
benefits beyond this. A fee-simple title enables 
a farmer to shape and plan his farm that it will 
remain a permanent help and blessing to his 
family when he is gone. There is, in fact, no 
compensation secured from land, so important to 
mankind, as the security and sacredness it gives 
to an earthly home. Anything short of an ab- 
solute right to privately occupy and hold the 
land on which a home is situated, aeainst the 
world, is only an approximation of what a home 
should be. A blow at the private ownership in 
land, is a blow at the security and sacredness of 
home. 



CHAPTER XII. 

PRIVATE RIGHT OF IMPROVEMENTS. 

AM very greatly pleased to see how reflec- 
tion and study brings you to the acknowledg- 
ment of necessities. You finally see and recog- 
nize that a farm is very largely the work of the 
owner's hands. You see how the hairy-breasted 
pioneers in the Eastern and Middle States, 
chopped their little home out of the mighty 
woods. It was only after years and years of the 
hardest kind of labor that a spear of grain could 
be made to erow. Even after the wood had 
been cut away the soil had, from year to year, 
to be replaced in order to make it productive. 
By far the greater part in farm values are made 
by labor. 

In study and reflection you have seen these 
things, and so you say land shall be leased 



INHERENT VALUES. 69 

"under such conditions as will sacredly guard 
the right to private improvements." 

Now I want to show you that these private 
improvements cannot be properly protected by 
a leasehold interest. There are many sacred 
rights in improvements that cannot be appraised. 
Many of these rights so inhere between the 
owner and the land, that when the owner is 
separated from the land, these rights must perish. 
Every improvement an owner puts on land, has 
to him a particular value that would be worthless 
to anyone else. 

True Value of a House. 

A person builds a house. It has a general 
value. This is measured by what it cost in 
money. To the builder, however, it has another 
value which is measured by the study and time 
employed in perfecting" the plan. It is further 
measured by the benefits this plan bestows upon 
the objects for which it was made. The house 
was built for the special comfort of a particular 
family, and it will not afford the same comfort 
to another and different family. In building a 
house we consult the wife and the children. 
The ideas of all are combined and incorporated 



70 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

in the plan. Different apartments are made for 
different children. These apartments are so 
arranged that the older ones may be together 
and the younger ones kept most convenient to 
the parents. When the house is done it affords 
an accommodation to the family that plans it, 
which it cannot afford to any other family. This 
accommodation is all the compensation a house 
provides. This is its purpose. By this its true 
value is measured. Taking from a family these 
accommodations and giving only the cost of the 
house in money, is robbing the family of the 
dearest and most sacred right the house affords. 
This is only a single example among many. 

So With a Farm. 

Every farmer has his own particular way of 
caring for his stock. He plans his barn, his 
groves, his fields and his yards with reference 
thereto. All these have to him a value besides 
their mere cost in money. So you see you can- 
not protect this sacred right to private improve- 
ments with anything short of a fee-simple title. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
HOME ASSOCIATIONS. 



HERE is another reason why putting lands 
on which houses are buih, up at pubHc 
auction, would be unjust and cruel. Most homes 
have other values that cannot be made a matter 
of barter and sale. A very plain old house may 
be the home of an aged couple who have lived in 
it all their married lives. All the children were 
born there. Some of them are dead and buried 
there. The others have gone out for them- 
selves. Now the steps at the door of that old 
house, have, to this aged couple, a valuable his- 
tory. It is of no possible interest to anyone 
else. To them, however, it is very dear. In 
their old age it is a comfort for them to sit on 
those old steps. They are no more comfortable 
than other steps. They have, however, a special 



72 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

comfort to this old twain. They recall to them, 
a lifetime of tender associations. The old well 
may be a very ordinary one. Every child, how- 
ever, has drawn and drank its waters, and to this 
old father and mother the waters of this well are 
just a little sweeter than any other on earth. 
There are the trees they planted, beneath whose 
branches the children played. They are the 
dearest trees now, to this old couple, in the 
world. 

To Whom Associations Belong. 

These associations belong to these old 
people; they have been painted upon the walls, 
grafted upon the trees, planted in the grounds, 
until everything about and around that plain old 
home, speaks to this old couple, tender words of 
comfort and of joy. You cannot guard these 
sacred rights by any plan^ or system which puts 
this old home under the merciless hammer of a 
public auctioneer. 

Any system of government that does not look 
to the highest possible development of home 
life, and the fullest enjoyment of home blessings, 
is fundamentally defective. The most vital ele- 
ments of human character require a life-time to 



TO WHOM ASSOCIATIONS BELONG. 73 

develop. The most grateful compensation 
human efforts can secure, are inseparably con- 
nected with that sacredness which the perma- 
nency of home-life can only give. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
PUBLIC VALUES. 



r 



ELL me, Mr. George, what objection you 
can urge to the giving of every family, a 
permanent home, to be theirs, forever ? 

George. — My objection is this. That it gives 
to that family one value which alone belongs to 
the public. From the nomadic races, to the 
present time, civilization, in its progress, has cre- 
ated a public value in all lands. This value, be 
it small or great, belongs to the public and not 
to the individual, because; as the individual is 
born in the world, he finds this value a part of 
the world itself. He has not created it any more 
than he created the world, and he has no more 
right to appropriate the one than the other. 

Work. — That seems very reasonable; and, 
without consideration, a willino- mind mio-ht be 



INHERITED WEALTH. 75 

readily induced to accept it as self-evident truth. 
Reflection, however, and observation will show 
you that this public value is no more in land 
than in other kinds of property. Each success- 
ive generation has left to its successor, a fund of 
created wealth. 

Distribution of Inherited Wealth. 

Now this wealth which is left to each 
generation, must be distributed in order to 
be enjoyed. How shall this be done ? You 
say, by the government. Who is the govern- 
ment in a free country ? The people. How 
shall the people distribute this wealth that comes 
to them from a preceding generation ? It must 
be done by certain rules and regulations which 
the people in their sovereign capacity, agree to 
and adopt. 

Under the old Enorlish rules and reo^ulations 
of distributing inherited wealth, the estate was 
given to the oldest child. Our laws now very 
generally give the estate to each child alike. If 
a man may grant his children the use of his 
property while he lives, why shall he not be free 
to give it to them w^hen he dies ? 

Now each o-eneration, as I have said, leaves to 



76 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

its successor an equal wealth in land and other 
property. Three-fourths of the land value, how- 
ever, was created by former generations, the 
same as personal property. So only about one- 
,eiehth of inherited wealth is in the naked, unim- 
proved land. Now what does it matter whether 
a man inherits an estate in gold, or an equal 
estate in land ? The interest of the gold will 
buy the use of the land, so he, who inherits the 
gold, inherits all the benefit that land can give 
him. So you see, that in this matter of public 
values which have come to us from civilization, 
since the nomadic races, are, in only a small de- 
gree, confined to land. 



CHAPTER XV. 
REAL AND SOCIAL VALUES. 

AGAIN, public values are created in personal 
property as much as in land. You have a 
gold watch; I have a brass one. Both are equally 
good time keepers; the same labor was ex- 
pended in making each one; both are equally 
strong and equally useful for the purposes for 
which they were made. Yours, however, is 
worth $ioo; mine, but |io. Wherein is the dif- 
ference ? What gives your watch a value of $90 
more than mine ? The public, that is society, 
and that alone. 

Two men go to a new country. Each has 
$1,000. One buys 160 acres of land; the other 
buys a stock of goods. They both struggle 
along as people have to in a new country. They 
both work hard and live plain. The country 



78 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

grows. The farmer finds sale for his produce. 
The growing country gives the merchant a grow- 
ing trade. The farmer works the harder of the 
two: but both do an honest, straight-forward bus- 
iness. Forty years pass by. The country now 
is old. Land is worth about as much as it ever 
will be. His land and iniprovements are worth 
1 1 00 an acre. His farm is worth 1 16,000. The 
merchant however, is worth 1 100,000. Now 
which has been benefited most by the public ? 
But for the growth of the country, the merchant 
would be a pauper. He has gained more 
every year by the development of the country, 
than the farmer. The interest on his wealth 
would secure him the use of a half a dozen 160 
acre farms. 

You entirely lose sight of this important truth. 
The only values that society — that is the public 
— does not give, are on those things which alone 
are necessary to sustain animal existence. The 
value of everything else is given by society and 
by public improvement. Our clothes, our car- 
riages, our furniture, pictures, books — the value 
of all these things is given to them by the 
public. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
FRANCHISES. 

YOU seem to be impressed especially with 
public values in land because they continu- 
ally increase from one generation to another. 
Are you not aware that this is not strictly true? 
The lands in Oriental countries, which were once 
very valuable, have now little or no value at all. 
So you see that these public values do not inhere 
in and become a part of the land. Other public 
values survive generations. Every corporate 
franchise of any value, survives the charter 
members and continues through generations. 
The East India Company affords a remarkable 
example. 

A railroad is built through a new country. It 
gets its right-of-way for a song. Starts towns 
along its line. At the beginning it has little 



8o WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

value aside from the cost of the materials and 
the right-of-way. Every person, however, who 
settles in one of its towns or buys a farm along 
its line, adds a value to this road. It remains as 
long as the country remains settled. Generation 
after generation its value increases with the gen- 
eral wealth of the country. Still this railroad is 
personal property. Its value, however, is as 
much a public value as that of any real estate. 

A printer comes to a new town with a one- 
horse outfit in a one-horse w^agon. He starts 
the "Weekly Tribune." At the beginning the 
paper has no value aside from the cost of the 
materials in the office. Twenty-five years pass 
by. The "Tribune" is the leading daily paper. 
Aside from the value of materials in the office, 
the paper itself has a good-will value of $100,000. 
This good-will value is wholly a public value. It 
continues from father to son, and may continue 
through generations. A remarkable example is 
afforded in the New York Herald. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WHO ARE ENTITLED TO THESE 
VALUES. 

YOU lose sight of the fact that these public 
values are now as equally and equitably 
distributed as they would likely be by your plan. 
In some respects our laws might be very wisely 
amended. Amendment of laws, however, should 
affect only existing evils, and should not be 
made to demoralize that which is good. 

In all these values, those who have contributed 
most to their accumulation, are best entitled to 
enjoy them. 

Your plan would give to every foreigner who 
would come to this country, the same right to 
the enjoyment of all these values, that the native 
born residents would have. This would be very 
unjust, for the united work of the native born 



82 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

citizens has created these values and they 
should, therefore, have superior rights in their 
enjoyment. 

A Barren Scheme. 

With the best possible motive, and for a 
most worthy purpose, you have proposed 
an utterly fruitless and barren scheme. 

Many of us have been deceived by it because 
you have painted it in bright colors. When we 
come to examine it, and look into it, we find that 
it everywhere discriminates against the real 
friends of labor and in favor of its oppressors. 
Had you proposed some plan to confiscate the 
wealth of the rich, whether in lands or gold, and 
to give it to the poor, there would be a sense of 
justice in the scheme. 



CHAPTER XVni. 
MANY WISE PLANS. 

YOU turn away, however, from the mountain 
range, with its excessive inequahties, its 
mines of gold, and its barren wastes, and make 
war upon the rohing prairie with its green fields 
and shady groves. If you proposed to confiscate 
unused lands belonging to corporations, to aliens, 
and all other speculators, and giving it in homes 
to the homeless, you would have proposed a 
purpose that would strike a tender chord in the 
human heart. If you proposed to place a limit 
on individual wealth of all kinds, there could be 
seen in the plan both wisdom and justice. If 
you proposed to reserve all mineral deposits to 
the government and to limit fee-simple title to 
the wood, the water, and the soil, a good pur- 
pose would be proposed and no hardship w^ould 



84 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

be entailed. Had you proposed to confiscate 
railroads and telegraph lines and turn them over 
to the government, many could endorse the 
proposition. Any one of these many plans, 
would more naturally tend to an equal distribu- 
tion of wealth than what you offer, and none of 
them would so greatly interfere with rights that 
all humanity regard as sacred. 

The one and only plan you offer, is so barren 
of relief and so threatening to, rights we most 
cherish, that it must cause all considerate men 
to absolutely abhor it. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
ARTISTIC BUT FALLACIOUS. 

RECOGNIZE in your writings a genius of 
high character. They display a rare warmth 
of poetry. Many of your creations display an 
ability for design. Your pictures, many of them, 
show the colorines, and the shadino-s, of an artist. 
You draw in one place, a picture of wealth, in 
another, a picture of want. In this you have 
done much orood. 

In reasoning upon these pictures, however, 
you lose yourself. You argue that as all wealth 
comes from land, therefore, the owner of land 
has made these pictures. The fault of the rea- 
sonine is that all wealth does not come from 
land. Want and poverty result from a dishonest 
appropriation of wealth after it is created. All 
eood thino-s come from God. Our misuse of 



86 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

them makes our misery. It is the misuse of 
created wealth, rather than the misuse of land, 
that makes misery among the American people. 
There has never been but one author whose 
writings remind me of your own. You will be 
surprised when I tell you, but I mean it as no 
offense. Your book reminds me much of the 
writings of Jules Verne. In his "Trip Around 
the Moon," he discusses astronomy, mathematics 
and natural philosophy, with a cleverness that 
shows the hio^hest dcQ^ree of learnino-. His com- 
putations seem accurate, his demonstrations 
plausible, and a willing mind might readily be- 
lieve his demonstrations true, were it not for the 
fact that he is all the time demonstrating that 
which is known to be impossible. So you, in 
discussing political economy, show a knowledge 
of the meaning of its terms; you use them with 
cleverness and skill; your demonstrations seem 
plausible, and you picture conclusions so as to 
make them afford most delightful prospects. 
The difficulty with your philosophy is this: the 
methods by which you reach these delightful 
prospects, are all impossible. 



CHAPTER XX. 
THE PROBLEM. 

|, ROM the figures which we have already 
^ taken from the Census, we can see the 
real situation, and fi-om that learn the true 
problem. 

Twenty million of people on farms have |io,- 
000,000,000 of wealth in lands and improve- 
ments. That is $500 each, or $2,500 for each 
family. Each farmer also has I500 worth of 
personal property. It is thought, however, that 
the personal property on farms will no more 
than pay the incumbrances that have been placed 
upon them. So I500 each, or $2,500 to each 
family, is about a fair estimate of the wealth of 
our 20,000,000 of farming people. 

There are about 30,000,000 of people living 
In cities and towns, and they have $33,000,000,- 



88 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

ooo of wealth, or $i,ioo each, which gives to 
each family $5,500, or more than twice as much 
as is possessed by the farming population. 
Counting public buildings and churches out of 
the 133,000,000,000, still there are 130,000,000,000 
of wealth distributed among the city and town 
people, giving them just twice the distributive 
share possessed by farmer. 

A Strange Paradox. 

The unequal distribution of this 130,000,000,- 
000 gives us nearly all our trouble. The larger 
the town or city, the more unequal is the distri- 
bution, and, strange to say, where we find the 
greatest superabundance, we find the greatest 
amount of poverty and want. How this super- 
abundance of created wealth can be made to 
supply the wants of poverty, is the true problem. 

The real problem is in regard to these I30,- 
000,000,000, not the $10,000,000,000. The |io,- 
000,000,000 is doing the best work that is done 
anywhere on earth. The 130,000,000,000 is 
eivinor us infinite trouble,. Now we can afford 
to let zuell enough alone. The $10,000,000,000 is 
the salt that must save us. That needs no at- 
tention. All that it needs is fair play. The I30,- 



THINGS WE MUST KNOW. 89 

000,000,000 needs attention, and it needs it very 
' badly. We want to look it over; we want to see 
who has it; we want to know also how they 
came by it; we want to find out what they pro- 
pose to do with it; we want to learn why this 
double wealth quadruples want. 

The Millionaire a Miser. 

Here is superabundance. Think of it; super- 
abundance breeding want! Where there is the 
greatest superabundance there also is the great- 
est want. The poor perish by starvation where 
the bread of life is piled in piles and mountain 
high. There is the problem. It is not the 
science of rent. It is the science of superabun- 
dance. We want to learn why superabundance 
leads men to gamble rather than work? Why 
more than enough begets only a desire for still 
more and more? Why plenty breeds only a 
passionate greed for miserly possessions. We 
want to learn that the millionaire is a miser. As 
to all his superabundance he is a miser. Beyond 
an abundance his hoarding is but the work of a 
miser. In miser's bags a nation's bread is hid 
away from the poor who cry for food. The 
wheat is gathered in with honest hands; and 



go WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

then the miser comes, and takes not his share, 
nor what he needs, but grabs it all, or all he can, 
and bears it off, and then he hides it and lets it 
lay till he is dead — thus the harvests rot, while 
men and women starve. This is not Progress 
and Poverty, it is the Miser and Misery. 

Managing the Miser. 

Confiscation of land by taxation, would not touch 
the miser. He still could grab, and hide, and 
hoard, and wring his hands in joy, and laugh at 
misery. We must reach the miser, count his 
gold, and make him know that mankind will not 
be a party to his greed by protecting him in his 
miserly hoardings. 



Part III. 



A TALK ON WAGES. 



SOME VERY BAD FRENCH. 



LOW WAGES. 



THE REAL CAUSE. 




CHAPTER XXL 

A TALK ON WAGES. 

Y FRIEND, you are looking well consid- 
ering what has happened. I have called 
again to set you right in reference to wages. 
If I understand just what you say, you are 
certainly misaken. Define to me what you 
regard first principles in wages. 

George. — " It is as plain as the simplest demon- 
stration that the corollary of the law of rent is 
the law of wages." Corollary means depending 
on. So wages depend on rent. A certain fund 
is divided between rent and wages. Kill rent 
and wages gets it all. "Or, to put it in alge- 
braic form, it is thus: 

Produce=Rent-|-Waa-es-|-Interest. 
Therefore, 

Produce — Rent=Waofes-|-Interest." 



94 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

Work, — You are quite an algebraist. Vieta, 
who perfected that "symboHcal science," was the 
French mathematician, who read the Spanish 
Cipher and was brought before the Pope for 
being possessed of the Devil. Your French 
mathematics has, I think, somewhat confused 
you. Your French is rather faulty, or, at least, 
your English version. Your translation is de- 
fective. I have the text, in French, before me. 
By your leave, I will correct you. Here is the 
original. The French from M. de Levaleye: 

Produce=Rent-|-Wages-|-Interest-|-Profits. 

Here is your translation: 

Produce=Rent-|-Wages-|-Interest. 

You see you chopped off. . . '. Profits. 

Interest and rent very remotely affect wages, 
but profits is the leech that saps the life of labor. 
The renter earns his rent and pays it as interest to 
the owner of the land, and wages cut no figure. 
The produce, which you formulate, and which 
goes to wages, is created by labor. Labor 
should have it all and would get it all, except 
that it is wronged by profits. 

In 1880 agriculture here invested 1 10,000,000, - 
000. Manufacture and mining, #3,000,000,000. 
Agricultural produce was $2,200,000,000. 



PROFITS AND WAGES. 95 

Manufacturing and mining produce was |2,200,- 
000,000. It is thought that independent labor- 
ing mechanics, artists, authors, inventors, and 
other kinds of independent labor, produce $800,- 
000,000. We will call it so thouo-h it is not re- 

o 

ported. Interest on capital invested in manu- 
facture and mining, would be about |200,ooo,- 
000. Rent of all lands, counting out improve- 
ments, cannot exceed 1300,000,000. Wages in 
manufacturing and mining, were 1 1,000,000,000. 
So in known quantites we have — 

Farm ^1,900,000,000 

Independent labor 800,000,000 

Rent 300,000,000 

Interest 200,000,000 

Wages 1,000,000,000 

Profits 800,000,000 













«-N 


n 


(U 










:3 





^ 











i-1 








10 




^^ 



$5,000,000,000 
Now you can see how much more directly 
profits affect wages than rent. Wage labor in 
manufactures above, produces six times what all 
lands and mines would rent for, after deducting 
private improvements, and rent would not be 
more than a third of what capital takes from this 
wage labor in profits. 

The question of rent, you see, of all land 
values, deducting private improvements is an in- 



96 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

significant consideration when compared with 
the question of labor and wages. 

The $300,000,000 of rent, wage labor has noth- 
ing directly to do with. It no where touches 
wage labor in any of its rights, and only very 
remotely affects it. On the other hand, wage 
labor in manufacture and mining, creates with its 
own hands, 12,000,000,000 of wealth, but re- 
ceives in wages only half that amount. One- 
tenth pays interest on all investments, and 
nearly $4. out of every |io is taken from wages 
by profits. 

You see, Mr. George, that such an oversight 
as you have made, in dropping profits out of 
your demonstration, could not have happened if 
your mind had not been insanely bent on rent. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

WHEAT AND MEAT. 

UST see to what mad results your phlloso- 
U phy would lead. For instance, rent no 
more affects wages than the price of meat affects 
the price of wheat. As rent and wages are both 
elements of produce, so wheat and meat are ele- 
ments of food produce, though much more 
neariy related. A supply of meat decreases the 
needed supply of wheat. That is, the more 
meat consumed the less wheat will be required. 
Therefore, according to your philosophy, the co- 
rollary of the law of meat would be the law of 
wheat, or, to put it in algebraic form, it would 
be thus: 

Eood=Wheat-|-Meat. 
Therefore, 

Wheat=Eood— Meat. 



98 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

Now two farmers compete. One raises wheat; 
the other meat. The wheat man takes his wheat 
to the mill, gets it ground and sells the flour. 
Out of every eighteen bushels the miller takes 
eight bushels for toll. The wheat man regards 
this as robbery and complains to the country of 
the exorbitant rates of toll. Political economists 
tell him, in the language of your philosophy, that 
his remedy is solely against meat. Then this 
man goes home and kills his neighbor's hogs and 
cattle. His neighbor beinor thus driven out of 
the meat business, goes to raising wheat, and 
the miller gets two grists where before he got 
only one. Thus you see your remedy doubles 
the evil and cures nothing. 

Just so with wages. Now $2,000,000,000 of 
wealth is created each year in manufacture by 
wage labor. Of this $2,000,000000,, labor gets 
but 11,000,000,000, only half. Profits and inter- 
est gets the other half. Profits get |8oo,ooo,ooo, 
interest $200,000,000. The farmer and the traffic 
he immediately maintains, affords the market for 
the produce of manufacture. Making war on 
farming makes war on the demand for manufac- 
ture. It also drives many out of the business 
and increases the supply of wage labor. By 



CAPITAL A MONOPOLIST. 99 

confiscating land and putting it up for rent, 
you would place it all within easy reach 
of speculation, and capital would soon monopo- 
lize farming as completely as it now monopolizes 
manufactures. So you see, by turning away from 
the speculation that every year grows rich by 
robbing wage labor, and by raising a hue and 
cry about rent, you let the guilty escape and turn 
the crowd into a mad and fruitless chase after 
rent, which is comparatively innocent and harm- 
less. 




CHAPTER XXIII. 

ADAM SMITH. 

Y FRIEND, if you pardon the presump- 
tion, I will read you a lesson from one 
of the old masters. I am aware you think the 
old masters behind this age of ours, and in that 
you are right in the main, but wrong in the par- 
ticulars. Nevertheless, some of the old masters 
in political economy saw some things pretty 
clearly even a hundred years ago. I must insist 
that Adam Smith, the father of this science, saw 
the cause of low wages much more clearly than 
yourself. A hundred and ten years has only 
put scales upon your eyes. 

Adam Smith, the grand old Scotchman, gave 
the world his Wealth of Nations, the same year 
that America gave the world the Declaration of 



THE LAW OF WAGES. lOI 

Independence. Here is what he says in regard 
to wages: 

"The fund destined for the payment of wages, 
the revenue and stock of its inhabitants, may be 
of the greatest extent, but if they have contin- 
ued for several centuries of the same, or very 
nearly the same extent, the number of laborers 
employed every year could easily supply, and 
more than supply, the number wanted the follow- 
ing year. There would be a constant scarcity 
of employment and the laborers would be 
oblio^'ed to bid ao-ainst one another to o-et it. 
If in such a country the wages of labor have ever 
beeii more than sitfjicient to inaintain the laborer 
and to- enable him to bring up his family, the com- 
petition op the. laborers, and the interest of the 
7nasters, luould soon reduce them to the lozuest rate 
consistent zoith common humanity^ 

There is the law of wages in a nut-shell. Low 
wages is the result of two causes — an over-sup- 
ply of laborers, and the interest of employers in 
profits. These two causes tend to reduce wages 
to the ''lozuest limit consistent zuith common hu- 
manity." 

America, as a people, is two centuries old. 
For two centuries everything has conspired to 



I02 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

produce an over-supply of wage labor. First, 
there has been the natural supply that comes 
from the natural increase of population; sec- 
ond, America has been made the asylum for the 
oppressed wage laborers of all lands, even to 
the "Heathen Chinese," and wage labor has 
flooded our shores from every nation on earth; 
third, the government, with good intention, but 
with most unfortunate results, instituted a Patent 
Office and put patents on all kinds of labor-sav- 
ing machinery. This has resulted in a regular 
flood of machines, brainless laborers, who 
neither eat, sleep, or dress, and that do cheaper 
work than any man can do. This system of 
patents has enabled capital to monopolize the 
entire power of labor-saving machinery. 
Capital has turned the whole working force of 
machinery against wage labor. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
LABOR SUPPLY. 

BY a little examination we can see the 
sources from which we get our over-sup- 
ply of labor. If we had no other source than 
our natural increase by multiplication of popula- 
tion, we still would have an over-supply. That 
is, population increases faster than industries 
develop. Everybody multiplies and replenishes 
the earth, but it is only a few who develop in- 
dustries. Natural increase of population, there- 
fore, outruns our industries. This natural in- 
crease of population is generally considered the 
chief source of labor supply. This, however, 
is only one of three prolific sources in this 
country. 

Labor-saving machinery has come into this 
supply. In the last twenty years labor-saving 



I04 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

machinery has in a single estabhshment, engaged 
in the manufacture of agricultural implements, 
displaced 1,545 men; and 600 men and labor- 
saving machinery, are doing the work of 2,145 
laborers. In the manufacture of small arms one 
man and labor-saving machinery does in one 
day, what twenty years ago, took fifty men to 
do. Boot and shoe manufacturers testify that 
one employe with machinery, now does what 
formerly required five to do. In manufacturing 
carriages, one man with machinery, does the 
work of three men. In the manufacture of cloth- 
ing, one man with machinery, does the work of 
six men. In the manufacture of woolen and 
cotton goods, one operator with machinery, does 
the work of a score of men. Ten years ago it 
was supposed that this machinery in wool and 
cotton factories was perfect, but as perfect as it 
then was, it has even since then been made 
double in value, and now enables these factories 
to do the same work with half the help required 
ten years ago. All in all, it is thought by most 
competent judges, that machinery has reduced 
the number of laborers required, one half 

Now, on top of all this, come the immigrants 
from all the nations of the earth. In the last six 



LABOR AND IMMIGRATION. IO5 

years they have averaged 500,000 a year. From 
1870 to 1880, our natural increase of population, 
aside from immio;ration, averagfed less than 
1,000,000 each year. Immigration during the 
last six years, has been about half as great 
as our native born increase. Immigrants are 
largely adults. They have easily twice as many 
adults as are ordinarily found among the people. 
This immigration has in these six years afforded 
employers as great a supply of adult labor as our 
entire native increase of population. Now when 
we know that the natural increase of population, 
aside from immigration, outruns the demand for 
wage labor, we can see what an abnormal 
supply we have when immigration doubles 
this natural increase, and while machinery is con- 
stantly reducing the need of manual labor. A 
labor-saving machine in an old industry, is a 
dumb but most efficient laborer. Ricardo had 
the good sense to see this, and the honesty to 
admit it. When an invention institutes a new 
industry it is different. Such inventions, how- 
ever, are very few. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

RICARDO'S RULE OF OVER-SUPPLY. 

"^"^AVID RICARDO'S life affords one of sev- 
^_J eral instances in the history of England, 
wherein Jewish blood has developed into marked 
superiority, Like his race, he was a man of the 
world. His education was limited. He had a 
genius, however, for the laws of business. He 
developed more than any other man, England's 
systems of currency and foreign exchange. 

Finally he wrote a comparatively brief but 
most concise work on the "Principles of Political 
Economy." This work reviewed Adam Smith's 
''Wealth of Nations." Ricardo generally en- 
dorsed Smith, but corrected certain principles 
which subsequent experience had disproved. 
Ricardo died the year before J. Q. Adams was 
elected president. 



MILL ON RICARDO. IO7 

John Stuart Mill, who was of the Ricardian 
school, and who developed in detail, the princi- 
ples stated by Ricardo, says of that author: 
" He cultivated and he acquired habits of intense, 
and patient, and comprehensive thinking, such 
as have been rarely equalled and never ex- 
celled." 

OVER-SUPPLV AND UnDER-SuPPLY. 

Now Ricardo states in his rule of over-sup- 
ply, that the aggregate of an over-supply is 
worth less than the aggregate of an under-sup- 
ply. He illustrates it thus: 

"If 100,000 loaves were sold every day in 
London, and the supply should, all at once, 
be reduced to 50,000, can any one doubt that 
the price of each loaf would be considerably 
more than doubled ? If, on the other hand, 
200,000 loaves instead of 100,000, were daily 
exposed for sale, could they be disposed of 
without a fall in price far exceeding the propor- 
tion of the excess of quantity?" 

He then takes the different crops of English 
wheat and shows that an over-supply always so 
reduced prices as to make the entire crop worth 



I08 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

much less total, than small crops that were in- 
sufficient to supply the demand. 

This rule applies with remarkable force in 
case of labor. If loo more carpenters are 
wanted and cannot be had, carpenters' wages 
rise very perceptibly, but if there are lOO car- 
penters out of a job, wages go down to the bot- 
tom. Our over-supply, and constant increase 
of over-supply of labor, has kept wages down 
to the lowest bottom to which our "common 
humanity" would submit. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE INTEREST OF THE MASTERS. 

R. ADAM SMITH saw with his clear Scotch 
perceptions "The Interest of the Mas- 
ters," and mentioned it as an element in reduc- 
ing wages to the "lowest rates which are con- 
sistent with common humanity." In another 
place he speaks of how these masters combine 
against labor, and says: 

"Whoever imagines on this account, that 
masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the 
world as of the subject. Masters are ahvays 
and everyiuhere, in a sort of tacit, but constant 
and unifomn coinbination, not to raise zuages of 
labor above their actual rate!' 

Now, Adam Smith saw, a hundred and ten 
years ago, that the employers of labor are 
''always and everywhere" combined to keep 
wages down to an arbitrary standard. 



no WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

David Ricardo, with his clear Jewish insight, 
saw the same thino-. 

Since that time, a few college professors have 
been trying to convince the world that Smith 
was wrong, but they have only shown, in Smith's 
own words, ''their ignorance of the world and 
of the subject." 

Now, the interest of masters is, very natur- 
ally, all one way. They have everything in their 
power because the supply multiplies faster than 
their needs. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

HOW WAGES ARE KEPT DOWN. ' 

DO not believe that very many of these em- 
ployers desire to be even unjust to labor. 
But this tendency to crowd down wag-es cannot 
be helped. The interest of the masters^ abso- 
lutely forces this tendency, and with present 
laws cannot be stopped. It is an easy thing for 
masters to. combine, as Adam Smith says, and 
he says that to suppose they do not combine 
shows an icrnorance of the world and of the 
subject. It is natural that masters should not 
combine to raise wages. Wealth is human, 
very, and in working for increase, it looks always 
to its own interests. No employer can make 
any money by paying his help more than other 
employers pay. So capital very naturally fixes 
an arbitrary standard and all employers tacitly 



I I 2 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

agree not to raise it, unless compelled to do so. 
They cannot agree, however, not to low^er this 
standard. This puts the tendency of wages into 
the hands of the few unprincipled employers. 
There is the trouble. An unprincipled em- 
ployer, when he finds he is unable to cope with 
fair competion, will seek an undue advantage by 
crowding the wages of his employes down, and 
that too without any regard for rights, human or 
otherwise. 

The Employer's Method. 

If his employes strike, he will employ an- 
other set that are always waiting at the 
door, and the ofovernor of the state will send 
troops to help him install the lower line of help. 
Now then, this unprincipled employer has low- 
ered the arbitrary rate of wages. He has got a 
new set of cheaper employes and the governor 
is protecting him. Now what is the result ? 
Why some other employer of the same class, 
follows suit, and the governor protects him. 
Then another does likewise, and so, all the more 
unscrupulous employers fall into the lower line. 
At last, all others have to come down to this new 
and lower arbitrary rate. After they all get set- 



THE STATE AND EMPLOYERS. I I i> 

tied down to this new rate, the meanest man in 
the lot makes still another break. His men 
strike, and he calls in a still cheaper set that have 
congregated around his door; again the governor 
sends troops, and again he gets cheaper labor. 
Then again, in regular order, all the employers, 
one after another, fall into the lower line of 
rates. In this way, there is a constant tendency, 
everywhere, to get cheaper labor and to fix 
lower rates of waees. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
WAGES IN IRON MANUFACTURE. 



^HIS inevitable tendency of the 'Tnterest of 
the Masters," in crowding down wages, is 
most clearly illustrated in our iron manufactures. 
No class of manufacturers have been more pros- 
perous; none have been better protected. If 
Protection and Prosperity would have raised 
wages anywhere, it would have done it among 
our iron industries. 

For a score of years the farmers of America, 
have cheerfully paid an average of 3 cents extra 
on every pound of wire, and railroads have paid 
extra prices for rails, in order to develop our 
iron industries, and we have been taught that 
the development of these industries would surely 
accomplish two results. First, it would cheapen 
produce and, second, it would raise wages. 



PROTPXTION AND LABOR. II5 

There is no doubt but it has had a tendency to 
increase the strength and stabiHty of American 
production. In that it is worth, perhaps, all it 
has cost. 

This progress in wealth, however, has pro- 
duced poverty. My friend, in this you are right. 
In 1870 our iron manufacturies had a capital of 
1121,000,000. They produced a net product of 
$62,000,000. They employed 77,000 hands at 
an average yearly wage of $526. In 1880, after 
ten more years of protection and prosperity, 
these industries had a capital of $230,000,000. 
They produced a yearly net product of $105,- 
000,000. They employed 105,000 hands at an 
average yearly wage of $396. 

Does Protection Protect Labor? 

In 1870, out of a net product of $62,000,000, 
they paid wage labor $40,000,000. In 1880, out 
of a net product of $105,000,000, they paid wage 
labor but $55,000,000. The net product was in- 
creased $43,000,000. Of this increase the em- 
ployers kept $28,000,000 and gave wage labor 
$15,000,000. 

In 1870, each $100 of net product was divided 
as follows: Wages, $65; profits and interest. 



I 1 6 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

I35. In 1880 it was divided as follows: Wages, 
152; profits and interest, $48. 

In 1870, wages got nearly two-thirds of the 
net produce. After ten years of protection and 
prosperity, wages get only a trifle more than 
half In ten years more, at the same rate, wages 
will get only a third, while profits and interest 
will get two-thirds. 

And, my friend, you ought to see that your 
howlino^ at rent, no more affects the situation 
than does the barking of a bright-faced dog at 
the pale-faced moon. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 
ARBITRARY PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 

F free trade were generally adopted, unjust 
speculation would have free swa}/. There 
has never been a time from Adam Smith down, 
that protection, in some form or other, was not 
demanded by the best writers and by the neces- 
sities of the times. 

Ricardo, who believed generally in free trade, 
saw that even England must have protection in 
some things. 

Protective tariff, however, is arbitrary, and 
there is no doubt but that it raises the value of 
manufactures very materially. It gains a nation 
wealth. Now this wealth thus secured by this 
arbitrary law, should be made a general bless- 
ing, and, if need be, by other laws equally arbi- 
trary. Now, I want to say that there is, in 



I 1 5 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

my judgment, but one theory on which a pro- 
tective tariff can long" be justified, and that is 
upon the higher standard of wages required to 
meet the elements of the higher civilization 
of American labor. But if American labor is 
to be driven out of American shops and its 
places filled with the cheap labor of Europe, 
the protective tariff ought to be taken off 
promptly and with emphasis. If xA.merican 
labor is to be driven out of these shops and 
to the frontier, then give them and the farmers 
generally, the cheapest produce possible. We 
don't want a protective tariff over European 
goods, if our goods are to be made with 
European labor. If we must have Europe- 
an produce, let it come direct from Europe. If 
there is to be a tariff to protect labor, it must 
provide a method by which labor will get the 
benefit. If not, all unscrupulous employers will 
put their feet on labor and then, with their backs 
braced against an immovable tariff, they will 
crowd waees down in order to widen their own 
margin of profits. A protective tariff, loose at 
one end, puts all the rise on produce in the 
hands of the employer, and he is very likely 
to keep it there. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

LOWERING THE CIVILIZATION OF 

LABOR. 

HIS over-supply has had just the effect that 
Adam Smith said it must have. It has 
reduced wages to the "lowest limit consistent 
with common humanity," and seems to have in- 
augurated a system of lowering the civilization 
of labor. 

On this Prof. Laughlin, of Harvard, in his ad- 
ditions to an American edition of the work of 
John Stuart Mill, says: 

"This, moreover, is exactly what has been 
done by the Irish who drove the Americans out 
of the mills of New England, and who are now 
being driven out, probably, by the French-Ca- 
nadians, with a standard lower than the Irish." 

The opportunities afforded Prof. Laughlin, and 



I20 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

the great care which he always uses concerning 
facts, leave no doubt but that manufacturers have 
undertaken to change the civilization of labor 
in New England, to a lower and then a still lower 
standard. There never was a more striking ex- 
emplication of the doctrine of Adam Smith. 

David Ricardo also held that wages tended 
"to that which is necessary to enable the labor- 
ers, one with another, to subsist and perpetuate 
their race." 

Waees has but one limit. That limit is 
humanity. This sense of humanity is high or 
low, according to the state of civilization. 

In the order of the civilization of the laboring 
classes, we may enumerate the average weekly 
wages of blacksmiths in the different nations: 
United States, $11.70; Great Britain, I7. 50; 
France, I5.81; Germany, #4.00; Russia, I3.75. 
Counting cost of provisions would raise Europe's 
wages somewhat. 

Now as the schools of New England raised 
the civilization of the laboring class, their neces- 
sities increased and forced wages to rise. Hu- 
manity demands necessities and cannot be put 
off. It strikes and raises the devil, if denied 
these necessities. 



THE NATURAL RESULT. 12 1 

The manufacturers of New Eno-land, beean 
filling- their shops with a lower civilization that 
could be more easily satisfied, and, now it ap- 
pears, that the civilization of the Irish, demands 
more than they are willing to pay, and they are 
getting in a still lower civilization. 

Unless this tendency can be repressed, there 
can be no question as to what will follow. Wealth 
will everywhere monopolize the best developed 
localities. It will fill these localities with igno- 
rant help and crowd intelligent labor to the 
frontier. Increase from immigration will outrun 
the increase of native born population. Our 
whole tendency will be downward. 




CHAPTER XXXI. 

ANOTHER VIEW. 

S American labor has been driven out of 
the New England workshops, it has been 
compelled to "Go West." In economic lang-uage, 
it has been driven to the margin of cultivation. 
Here, it seems to me, is an injustice that cannot 
be permitted without violating every honest con- 
sideration of labor, and of the common welfare 
of our country. I ask you, in all fairness, if this 
does not tend to the greatest injustice, and also, 
to threaten, in some degree, the stability of our 
republic. 

The American laborers have, by the work of 
their hands, given wealth to their employers, 
and, furthermore, they have given the public its 
improvements. They have built the school 
houses, endowed thfe colleges, erected the 



RIGHTS OF AMERICAN LABOR. 1 23 

churches, paved the streets, macadamized the 
highways, developed the fields, and beautified 
the parks. 

Now we will grant that they have no legal 
interest in the accumulated increase they have 
given their employers, still have they not a 
vested right to enjoy, and have their children 
enjoy, the public improvements which their in- 
dustry has built? 

I am not inclined to extravagant language, 
but to see these Americans, in their later man- 
hood, themselves and their children, driven 
away from the churches, the schools, the beauti- 
tiful fields and parks, they have helped to make, 
only to give place to ignorant, unappreciative 
immigrants, ought to stir the blood of every 
true American citizen. 

A system of laws that recognizes such a prac- 
tice is pernicious, and, furthermore, it is danger- 
ous. If any one must go the frontier, let our 
laws impel the immigrant to go; for he comes, 
or should come, to learn and to help maintain 
liberty. He can never learn liberty except he 
first, learn what it has cost. This he cannot 
learn by being thrown into the enjoyment of 
blessings which the labor of freemen has devel- 



124 WORK AND COxMPENSATION. 

Oped. He must go to the frontier. There he 
will learn something- of what our fathers en- 
dured. He will learn something of what liberty 
has cost. He will have time for study before 
having to take a responsible part in the affairs 
of the state. He will be farther away from the 
influences that make a science of corrupting the 
minds and hearts of immigrants. He will be 
where he can grow into a good Amer- 
ican citizen. A system of laws that would im- 
pel the immigrant to the frontier and help 
American labor to enjoy the blessings it has 
created, would be just, and, it seems to me, it 
would be wise and politic. We want to wed 
American labor to the very ground. We want 
by our laws, to encourage proprietary labor. 
Your plan, my friend, gives no relief, or hope 
of relief, from any of these grinding evils. Con- 
fiscate all the land in New England, and still 
there stand the factories. There operate still the 
speculators. There still they will employ cheap 
European labor and drive intellig'ent American 
labor away. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

WEALTH EXPELLING INTELLIGENCE. 

HIS over-supply of labor is producing ine- 
vitable and deplorable effects. Let us 
look at the tendency of the conditions vouched 
for by our most conservative writers, American 
labor has been driven out of New England 
workshops to make place for the Irish, and now 
the Irish are being driven out to make place for 
a lower civilization. 

What motive impels this expulsion of intelli- 
gent labor? It is a motive common to wealth 
everywhere, and one that is everywhere driving 
intelligent labor away from wealthy localities. 
The rich like servile help. It takes off its hat 
and bows down as wealth passes by, and w^ealth 
likes it. It lives, too, on the leavings of wealth, 
and the rich like that. So, with machines, 



126 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

which need the aid of but very few brains, the 
rich can get along with a low grade of help, and 
make more money and live a great deal more 
like lords. As the rich are driving intelligent 
labor out of New England, just so are they driv- 
ing it out of the cities. Just as soon as the in- 
dustries of a locality develops wealth, that 
wealth turns around and disowns, and disinherits, 
and drives out of the country, the men who gave 
it existence. 

The Tendency of Wealth. 

Now, this is not overdrawn; it is to be seen 
everywhere, and is the natural tendency of 
wealth in every country and every clime. We 
need expect nothing- else unless we can find a 
lawful means by which to reach the avarice of 
the rich. If we do not reach and check this ex- 
pulsion of intelligent labor from improved locali- 
ties, labor will be driven to the frontier and away 
from all opportunities of improvement. Wealth 
will control all machinery and will make every 
kind of manufactured produce. Every laborer 
who will not bow down to wealth, will be driven 
to farmine. This will soon fill the land with 
small farms similar to France. This will multiply 



NO LUXURIES FOR FARMERS. 1 27 

produce. The low civilization of labor in the 
manufacturing districts, and consequent low 
wages, will require a smaller supply of this 
forced increase in farm produce. Farm produce 
will fall to its lowest limit, and farmers will have 
no recourse but to cut off luxuries and come 
down to bare necessities. This is not a pleasant 
picture. I wish my eyes did not behold it; but 
there it hancrs in the New Eno-land heavens. It 
is but a reflection of whither New England tends. 




CHAPTER XXXIII. 

A PICTURE OF LORDS AND SERFS. 

DE LiWELEYE, the French professor, 
who is, probably, the most hopeful of all 
writers on political economy, and who delights 
in showing- a bright side to everything, finds 
great satisfaction in comparing a French laborer 
of the present, with the French peasants in the 
reien of Louis XIV. In describinor this 
peasantry, he quotes the following description, 
taken from La Bruyere: 

"Spread over the country are to be seen cer- 
tain wild animals, of either sex, black, livid and 
sun-scorched, chained to the earth which they 
dig and turn with unyielding persistency. They 
have what may be called an articulate voice. 
When standing erect, they show a human face. 
In fact, they are men. At night they retire to 



PENURY OF THE SERFS. 1 29 

their dens, where they hve on black bread, 
water, and roots. They spare other men the 
trouble of sowing, digging, and reaping their 
food, and so ouo-ht not to lack this bread which 
they have sown." 

The reio;n of Louis XIV., is described in his- 
tory as "the most brilliant period of France." 

Splendors of the Lords. 

Another historian, writinor of the same reicrn, 
says : 

"At no period of the history of France, did the 
great and rich display such splendor in every 
department of life." 

And, at this time, when France reached its 
highest splendor, its labor was living naked, in 
dens like wild animals! This shows the extreme 
that may exist in a great and splendid country, 
between the splendor of the rich and the misery 
of the poor. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 
PUBLIC POLICY. 



HE freedom of contract is permitted by 
law, and this freedom is regarded as a 
common right. But there is a limit to this right 
of contract. All contracts are void, in law, 
when opposed to public policy. Marriage is a 
civil contract. It is a social agreement. Now, 
a contract to annul that agreement is void. 
Other contracts can be annulled by an agree- 
ment of parties. Why cannot the marriage con- 
tract? Because, say the people, ''we, the public, 
have an interest in all marriage contracts that 
forbids that they shall be annulled." It is op- 
posed to public policy. So all contracts that are 
opposed to public policy, are null and void. 

Has not the public an interest in wage labor, 
and should it not define a policy in regard to it? 



THE PUBLIC AND WAGES. 131 

Can lawyers, judges, and statesmen, say to the 
world, as honest and honorable men, anything 
else than that the public has a vital interest in 
wages, and that it ought to have an intelligent 
and well defined policy with reference to it. 
Need I suggest to lawyers the law of champerty, 
of usury, of undue influence, of public domain, and 
numerous other laws in which the public has as- 
serted an interest and defined a policy? Do 
these any more concern the public than wages? 
The public has an interest in seeing every honest 
laborer secure such a share of the wealth he 
creates, as will enable him to become a eood 
citizen, and to make good citizens of his children. 
Contracts that crowd wages below a basis of 
good citizenship, are opposed to public policy, 
and could be held null and void. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 
BARE NECESSITIES VS. CITIZENSHIP. 

HAVE suggested a rate of wages fixed on 
the basis of public policy. I have suggested 
that public policy could fix the rate so as to af- 
ford an employe and an average family, the 
necessities, not merely of life, but of good citi- 
zenship. 

Now, let us see how much that would raise 
the standard above bare necessities of life. 
Good citizenship is, of course, an indefmite 
standard. The requirements of good citizenship 
are means enough to afford, first, necessities; 
second, education; third, a fair share of ordinary 
luxuries; fourth, a reasonable amount of leisure. 
Everyone of these elements of expense are de- 
manded by public policy. 

An American is expected to educate his chil- 



REQUISITES OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP. 1 33 

dren. This means not only school, but it means 
church and society. If a laborer's daughter is 
promising-, she must be given such a degree of 
culture as will make her a lady. The laborer's 
boys must be prepared for American responsi- 
bilities. They must be dressed so they may go 
in society and appear respectable. The laborer 
must entertain such company as the proper social 
development of his children requires. This de- 
mands some of the luxuries of life. Then the 
laborer must have time aside from holidays, 
even, to look personally after the affairs of his 
family. 

Now, common intelligence and good citizen- 
ship demand all this, and public policy demands 
both intelligence and good citizenship. So I 
say there is a well defined difference between 
the basis of common humanity and public policy. 
One is a basis of subsistence and the other a 
basis of good citizenship. In the enforcement 
of this basis of good citizenship, the people have 
every possible interest. It is the foundation on 
which our republic stands. It is a proper matter 
of public policy, and our laws may properly de- 
clare all contracts violating this standard, to be 
null and void. 




CHAPTER XXXVI. 

A LEGAL LIMIT. 

R. J. S. MILLS says: 

"The simplest expedient which can be 
imagined for keeping the wages of labor up to 
the desirable point, would be to fix them by law; 
and this is, virtually, the object aimed at in a 
variety of plans which have, at different times, 
been, or still are, current, for remodeling the 
relations between laborers and employers, No 
one, probably, ever suggested that wages should 
be absolutely fixed, since the interests of all con- 
cerned often require that they should be varia- 
ble; but some have proposed to fix a minimum 
of wages, leaving the variations above that 
point to be adjusted by competition." 

Nothing could have suggested such an idea 
except public policy. It is interesting to see 



THE RIGHT OF THE STATE. 1 35 

how the different states are trying to enact arbi- 
trary laws with reference to labor. All these 
laws are based upon the right of the state to 
assert an interest in wages, and to define a 
policy with reference thereto. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 
ARBITRARY RATES. 

AM aware that very many college professors 
will look upon any one who suggests fixing 
rates of wages by law, as an economic crank. 
Still, if these learned gentlemen could but inform 
themselves "of the world and of the subject," 
they would see, as did Adam Smith, that wages 
are now fixed at bare necessities by the masters; 
who have only a single interest, and that is the 
increase of their wealth. 

I would not presume to suggest any absolute 
theory whereby the standard of wages could be 
fixed by law. I will say this, however, that 
when it comes to a question of right, the people 
possess it. And, I will say more, while it seems 
impossible to fix even minimum rates by law, 
either directly or indirectly, I still believe that 



REGULATING WAGES. 1 37 

the whole matter mig-ht, in each state, be better 
left to a state board with local adjuncts, than 
to be forever, wholly in the hands of the mas- 
ters. Representatives of the whole people 
could not very well adopt a worse system than 
that now enforced. Now, the masters drive the 
wedge of selfish interest over the head of the 
laborer and crowd him down to the lowest limit 
humanity will suffer. Representatives would be 
more likely to put a w^edge of public interest 
under the feet of the laborer and raise him up, 
as nearly as possible, to a standard that w^ould 
afford, not merely the necessities of life, but the 
necessities of citizenship. There certainly 
might be devised some legal authority for con- 
sidering and determining interests so vital as are 
involved in the just compensation of labor. It 
will be interesting to examine briefly, what is 
being done in repressing unjust speculation by 
arbitrary laws. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
RATES OF TRANSPORTATION. 



HE principles involved in the matter of ar- 
bitrary legal rates, have been gone over 
by the American people, and they are settled in 
favor of legal standards. When the farmers of 
America, rebelled against the arbitrary rules of 
transportation that had been fixed by capital, 
many very learned gentlemen came forward 
promptly, to explain the remedies afforded by 
competition, under the laws of supply and de- 
mand. There is a class of learned professors 
who can always be relied upon to explain the 
methods of capital in elegant Greek that nobody 
understands. 

The American people had the good sense to 
see that the laws of competition had been 
superseded by the masters of transportation, 



MASTERS VS. PEOPLE. 1 39 

who were "always and everywhere combined." 
The people saw that it was only a question as to 
whether the masters representing only one in- 
terest, — that of increasing their wealth, — should 
regulate these rates, or whether it should be reg- 
ulated by law and by commissions, representing 
the interests of all. That question is now 
settled. Passenger rates are now very com- 
monly fixed by law, and freight rates limited, 
and then further regulated by commissions. 

An absolute rate of wages would be difficult, 
because of the difi'erence of abilities of laborers 
to earn money. It is not impossible that a mini- 
mum might be fixed at the standard of the 
necessities of citizenship. Then all who could not 
earn such wages, could go to the frontier. This 
would send the ignorant immigrant to the fron- 
tier where he belongs, and leave the American 
laborer to enjoy the public benefits he has helped 
to create, and where, by his intelligence, he can 
assist in those co-operative methods which are 
only possible when labor is well informed. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

ARBITRARY LAWS FOR REPRESSION 
OF IMMIGRATION. 

CONGRESS has begun by attempting arbi- 
trarily to repress immigration. 

In "An act to prohibit the importation and 
migration of foreigners and aliens, under con- 
tract or agreement to perform labor in the 
United States, its territories, and the District of 
Columbia," Congres has shown that it sees the 
danger. 

This law strikes particularly at the Chinese 
and prevents manufacturers from going to China 
and making there a contract wherewith to supply 
their shops. It don't prevent, however, cheap 
European labor from coming here, nor does it 
prevent manufacturers from employing it after it 
has come. It is a start, however, and shows 
the right disposition, and promises relief. 



LIBERTY LIGHTING THE WORLD. 141 

This country cannot become an asylum for the 
oppressed of all lands. It Is not big- enough. It 
Is not a question of arms, but of legs. It Is not 
whether we can embrace all, but whether we can 
stand as an example for all. So long as we pro- 
tect our standing, we shine a living light into all 
the dark recesses of the earth, and our lio-ht 
carries joy and hope Into all the world. 

France had two revolutions and failed. Still, 
she saw our light and her heart was brave, and, 
at last, her hopes were realized. 

Our work for the oppressed of all lands, Is 
to solve the problem of free government. It is 
to demonstrate the truth that Voltaire, Mirabeau, 
Robespierre, and Lamertlne, tried in vain, to 
teach. 

France has a population of over 36,000,000. 
We have, by successfully maintaining free gov- 
ernment, blessed all these people. The failure 
of the two French revolutions would have 
enabled kings to make the world believe free 
government impossible. But, notwithstanding 
these failures and the unsuccessful efforts for free 
government. In Germany, Italy, and Poland, 
America remained a living demonstration of both 



142 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

the feasibility and the wisdom of free govern- 
ment. 

Her milHons of grateful freemen have symbol- 
ized America as "Liberty Enlightening the 
World." 

Tyrants cannot break the force of our light 
except to assail our standing by flooding our 
shores with ignorance and vice. Self-protection 
by us, is the hope of the world. We must repel 
this flood. 



CHAPTER XL. 

OTHER ARBITRARY LAWS OF STATES. 

Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Michigan, 
V^ Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and 
Ohio, provide by law, that employers of female 
help shall provide seats for such females to 
occupy, when not engaged in labor. Any vio- 
lation of these laws is made a misdemeanor, 
punishable by fine or imprisonment. It is very 
just to punish a man with imprisonment, who 
fails to look after the comforts of his lady em- 
ployes, and it would be equally just to punish 
with imprisonment, men, who will not pay wages 
sufficient to enable his male employes to provide 
comforts for their wives and daughters. 

California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, 
Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, 
Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, 



144 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, 
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, V^er- 
mont, West Virginia and Wisconsin, all provide 
by arbitrary laws, that owners of mines and 
workshops shall observe arbitrary rules with 
reference to the comfort, health and safety of 
employes, and violations are, in almost every 
case, punished by fine or imprisonment. 

Providing for the Family. 

Now, when law begins, as it is be^innine, in 
all the states, to compel wealth to be human, 
there is no telling where it will finally bring up. 
It has already gone into the mine with the miner, 
and into the shop with the mechanic, to see that 
the wants of these laborers are properly sup- 
plied while at work. Now the law will not have 
to make a very long stride towards the front be- 
fore it will be able to go home with the laborer, 
■and see that his family are properly provided for. 

Oregon, Texas, Dakota Territory, and several 
other states, forbid any interference with em- 
ployes. 

None have provided that masters shall not 
oppress labor by unjust contracts, except Michi- 
gan. Hurrah for Michigan ! Michigan provides 



A JUST LABOR LAW. 1 45 j 

that "Employers taking advantage of the pov- ; 

erty or misfortune of employes, or employes \ 

seeking employment, are guilty of a misde- '\ 

meanor." : 

No one can fail to see the justness of the i 

Michigan law. It is not only just, but it is right; \ 

and right wrongs no one. Even the employer 
has no right to complain of a law that only tends j 

to make of him a more Q-enerous man. Such a 
law should be adopted in all the states. The ] 

welfare of the people requires it. No reasons , 

ao-ainst. All reasons uro-e. i 



CHAPTER XLI. 
STRIKES. 

T is a sad, commentary on our civilization and 
our laws, that for so glaring a wrong as 
labor suffers, there is no legal remedy, and no 
effective disposition to provide one. It is 
strange that men can sit without raising their 
voices, or their hands, to help those who are 
being wronged, and yet condemn them for using 
the only means left to them. 

What does it avail to tell strikers that they 
lose more than they gain? Men become des- 
perate at injustice, and desperation don't stop to 
calculate costs. 

I deny, however, that strikes have made the 
laborers condition worse. They have caused 
great losses and much suffering; and there have 
been strikes that were most ridiculous and ab- 



STRIKES AND EMPLOYERS. 1 47 

surd. Still, all in all, strikes have bettered the 
condition of labor. 

The driver of a balky mule can at last control 
him, but if kind treatment alone will make him 
work, the meanest driver in the train, will then 
find it in his heart to be kind. 

No man likes to be kicked, nor to have his 
business kicked. When an employer finds that 
kindness and liberality will avoid trouble and 
loss, interest touches his pocket and that reaches 
his heart. Strikes have made employers far 
more liberal and considerate than they would 
ever have, otherwise, been. 

Still, we should have arbitrary laws by which 
to reach wealth and make it accord labor its just 
dues. When that is done, a strike would be 
lawlessness. Now it is often a necessity. 

Let all, who deplore strikes, exert themselves 
in securing such laws as will afford labor a 
remedy without the strike. 



CHAPTER XLII. 
GENERAL WALKER. 

_JERHAPS no recent writer, of what might 

be called the orthodox school of political 

economy, has, in recent times, taken so liberal 

and as advanced grounds as General Francis A. 

Walker. 

In discussing the question of labor-saving 
machinery, I regret that he has to acknowlege 
that he purposely left out the question of its 
monopoly, because monopoly is the one vital 
question concerning it. 

In speaking, however, of strikes he makes an 
excellent point, and tells a living truth in excel- 
lent language. He says: 

"Strikes are the insurrections of labor. Like 
insurrections in the political body, they are a 
purely destructive agency. There is no creative 



THE GOOD OF STRIKES. 1 49 

or healing virtue in them. Yet, as an insurrec- 
tion may destroy poHtical institutions which have 
outHved their usefulness, and have become, first, 
senseless and then pernicious, thus clearing the 
way for an afterwork of harmonious construc- 
tion; so a strike may have the effect to break a 
crust of custom that has formed over the remun- 
eration of a class of laborers, or to break through 
a combination of employers to withstand an ad- 
vance of wages, where the isolated effort of an 
individual of the wage class, acting with imper- 
fect knowledge and under a fear of personal 
proscription, would be wholly inadequate to ac- 
complish those objects." 

Strikes Essential. 

Further on, he says: 

"I cannot conceive how anyone can look at 
the condition of the manufacturing operatives, as 
they were left after the repeal of the iniquitious 
combination acts in 1824, and question that the 
early strikes in England, were essential to the 
breaking up of the power of custom, and of 
fear over the minds of the working people." 

There is much good practical sense in this 
New England professor. 



150 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

In the days of Adam Smith, and for a hundred 
and ten years since then, wage rates have been 
left to the one selfish interest of unscrupulous 
employers. It is time that this ''crust of custom" 
be broken up. It is pernicious and threatens 
the perpetuity of the nation. If nothing but 
strikes make the people, then let them come. 




CHAPTER XLIII. 

PATENT RIGHTS. 

Y friend, you are not alone in failure. 
There are some rare examples of how 
your predecessors have led labor into trouble. 

I remember one quite well. When labor-sav- 
ing machinery began being invented, I remem- 
ber the reasons economists then gave us, and 
the prophecies they made us. Said they: 

"An invention is a labor creation and belongs 
to the inventor." 

For once they sought the lawyers and had 
them draw a deed, and got Uncle Sam to sign 
it, deeding inventions to inventors. Now they 
gave this reason: 

"We must encourage these inventions, 'tis 
labor's sure salvation. One man with a spinning 
machine, can do a hundred times as much as he 



152 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

could do before. So machinery will everywhere 
strengthen the arm and multiply the fingers of 
labor." 

Some, who became enthusiastic, said: 
"Thus labor, by its own creation, will improve 
on the Almighty; lengthen its arms, multiply its 
fingers, and carry labor's brain force even into 
inanimate matter." 

Then they prophesied these results: 
"Labor will be King. With the inventions 
of his brains, he will move the world. He will 
multiply his powers and thus multiply his earn- 
ings. Brains will then be needed. Labor will 
be enriched, and in everyway elevated. Labor- 
ing men will be Franklins — rich in goods and 
philosophy. 

This was not so beautiful as your picture of 
the "City of God, the walls of jasper and gates of 
pearl," still it seemed more reasonable, and, yet, 
was equally deceiving. The world has proved 
this prophecy even more fully than we have 
proved yours. It is now proved that the deeds 
go not to inventors, but to employers of labor. 
Less labor is required and a lower class can do 
the work. Labor's prophesied salvation has 
proved its damnation. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

NAKED AND NON-EATING LABORERS. 

ABOR'S inventive creations have bred a 
J dumb generation that supplants its crea- 
tors. Labor by its genius has undermined the 
demand it sought to stimulate. It has forged 
for its masters the rusty chains that shackle labor. 
The prophecy of your predecessors was like 
your own, in this, that it prophesied the opposite 
of what was the truth. Labor-saving machinery 
cut off the fingers of labor. With the brains of 
a heathen to pull its slides and stoke its fires, 
capital can make a full supply of all produce de- 
manded. The iniquitous patent right deeds 
have given capital a complete monopoly of a 
power that robs and ruins labor, and that, more- 
over, fills the country with a horde of patent 
right peddlers, who with patent deeds, rob and 



154 WORK AND COMPENSATION. ' 

ruin honest unsuspecting men, and grow rich on 
eovernment swindles. 

Think, my friend, of those New England 
American laborers! With the earnings of their 
hands, the parks, the schools, the churches, and 
all public improvements, were made. See them 
with their wives and their children, driven from 
the enjoyments and advantages which their 
own hard work created. These patent deeds 
are what have done it. 

Confiscating rent would not change the pos- 
session of this machinery, nor prevent intelligent 
labor from being supplanted by the Chinese. 
Put your confiscation on the chattels of the rob- 
ber. Confiscate these machines with which 
capital cuts off the fingers of intelligent labor. 
Put these machines where laborers can get them. 
Where intelligent laborers, co-operative laborers 
and independent laborers, can save enough to 
buy them. Then will labor secure the benefits 
of its own creation. 



CHAPTER XLV. 
ABOLISH THE PATENT OFFICE. 



HE United States Patent Office ought to be 
abolished and it wants to be done "right 
quick." It was started to serve a good purpose, 
but it has been turned, body and soul, against 
the very class it was intended to benefit. 

I say the Patent Office is body and soul 
against labor. I would not say soul except that 
after seeing and knowing how it has given capi- 
tal the profits of machinery and a perfect 
monopoly of its use, it takes no step to 
remedy the evil. All its numerous Reports read 
as though millionaires had written them in the 
interest of capital and against labor. 

The whole idea of giving a patent right on in- 
ventions is wrong in principle as well as perni- 
cious in its effects. An invention is simply a 



156 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

discovery. Some person, by experiment or 
otherwise, discovers how a man may do twice 
as much work. That is a discovery. Another 
person, by experiment or some other means, dis- 
covers how a tree may be made to bear twice as 
much fruit. That is a discovery. A general 
discovers a movement that makes an army more 
effective. That is a discovery. Now, one is no 
more an invention than the other. A method in 
agriculture would not be patented, nor a move- 
ment in army tactics. They are just as useful as 
an improvement in machinery. The most glar- 
ing wrong is this: It gives the inventor of an 
improvement, absolute control of all that which 
he improves. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERIES. 

HESE discoveries are often the result of 
accidents. Adam Smith, a hundred and 
ten years ago, observed this. Said he: 

"In the first steam-engines, a boy was con- 
standy employed to open and shut alternately 
the communication between the boiler and cylin- 
der, according as the piston ascended or de- 
scended. One boy, who loved to play, ob- 
served that by tying a string from the handle 
of the valve to another part of the machine, the 
valve would open and shut without his assist- 
ance, and leave him at liberty to play with his 
fellows." 

Now, if that playful young lad had made the 
discovery in America, a patent would have been 
secured for him by some New England yankee. 



158 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

and that yankee would now control the working 
of all the steam engines in the country. Every 
complicated piece of machinery is the result of a 
succession of discoveries. Our patent right 
system gives the one making the last discovery 
the control of all the discoveries that preceded 
his. The whole system is an outrageous 
mistake. 

Improvements Monopolize the Patent. 

The reaper, as first invented and patented, 
had a straight sickle. L,ater, a notched sickle 
was invented. That was patented. This was 
such an improvement that the old reaper was 
no longer desired without the new patent 
sickle. A little later a self-rake was invented. 
That, of course, was patented. This was also 
such a radical improvement that no reaper was 
salable without a patent self-rake. Now the 
self-binder is invented, and no one wants a 
reaper at any price, without a new patent self- 
binder. So, from the day the reaper was in- 
vented, it has been useless except in connection 
with some new patented improvement. So 
limiting patents to seventeen years affords no 
relief. 



CAPITAL THROTTLES LABOR. 1 59 

This is true with all kinds of labor-savino- 
machinery, and it enables capital to get a com- 
plete monopoly of all kinds of useful machinery. 
With this monopoly it makes its own terms. If 
anyone refuses to pay these prices he is 
stopped from manufacturing. So, patent rights 
enables capital to hold independent labor by the 
throat. 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

BENEFITS OF ABOLISHING THE 
PATENT OFFICE. 

F the Patent Office was abolished, every 
town in the country, would have one or two, 
or more, small factories. Every town and. cross 
roads would have a barbed wire factory for mak- 
ing new wire and barbing old wire. You would 
also find a wagon shop, or two, in every town, 
with improved machinery. As it is, no one 
thinks of starting a wagon shop, or a barbed 
wire factory, with less than $50,000 or 1100,000. 
Except for the Patent Office we would have 
telephones everywhere and afford employment 
to a great many, where now but few are 
employed. 

So with all the industries. Take away patent 
rights, and men, with small accumulations, can 



ENCOURAGES LABOR. l6l 

secure improved machines and operate them, 
and labor will get the benefit. It would directly 
encourage and facilitate individual, proprietary, 
independent, and co-operative production. 
Labor, in all such cases, would get full return for 
its work. Manufacture would be distributed in 
smaller shops over the whole country. Thus 
the farmer and the manufacturer would be 
brought nearer together. Each one would save 
transportation and thereby get better returns. 

Elevates Labor. 

But the greatest benefit would be that it would 
keep the work of manufacture in the hands of 
our most intelligent labor. Thus our intelligent 
mechanics could find employment and their busi- 
ness be kept in the better developed localities, 
and their families have the benefit of our higher 
civilization. It would promote general prosper- 
ity and induce better citizenship, and better 
government. 

The greatest inventions, the steam engine and 
printing, were not patented. Invention needs 
no arbitrary stimulant. Inventive genius like 
the poet's muse, the artist's inspiration, and the 
orator's ambition, may be reHed upon to do its 



1 62 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

best. If any stimulant is thought to be needed, 
then offer direct rewards, commensurate with the 
benefit, and give the blessing to all alike, and 
not make it a matter of oppressive speculation. 
My friend, strike this gigantic evil. Strike it 
between the eyes with your confiscating sledge 
hammer. Strike this monopoly. Strike it down 
and kill it. Face the enemy. Fall into line. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 
MR. GEORGE RESOLVES TO WORK. 

GEORGE. — I see. 'Tis a monopoly ! Out- 
side of land and rent ! That cuts off 
labor's fingers! Paralyzes labor's brains! Sub- 
stitutes a heathen for an intellio-ent American ! 
Rent no more affects this, than the tide affects 
the horse thief. I will turn my confiscation on 
to this machinery. I'll stop this chopping off 
the fingers of intelligent labor. This driving 
American labor out of Old New England. I'll 
stop my worse than foolishness, my sailing 
around the moon, and employ my heart and soul 
in the things of earth. I will seek the possible 
and make the best of it. I will lead the millions 
on to something definite. And you shall see, 
sooner than you think, that a Republican Nation 
means Compensation. 



164 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

Wo7'k. — You are a good one, you are, Henry. 
I know you have it in you to get right down to 
business. Come to the battle. Fall into line. 
Find some sensible way to stop gambling and 
stealing and robbing. Teach labor how to study 
and how to work. Organization! Co-operation! 
Compensation! They are the watchwords. Sing 
them out. Co-operative help. That is, mutual 
relief and mutual support. 'Twas that with 
which the Saxons won themselves free cities, and 
under the very noses of emperors and kings. 

Co-Operation in England. 

Next, co-operation to save and to supply. Do 
as did the laborers at Rochdale, in Old England. 
Only a handful, and in a kingdom of queens, 
princes, lords and landlords. It did seem a 
hopeless folly. It has proved the highest wis- 
dom. Proved what study and what work can 
do. Now they number thousands upon thou- 
sands, and are worth millions of dollars. They 
have stores and factories all over the kingdom, 
and two ships that sail the ocean. Books too, 
thousands of volumes. A co-operative school — 
500 students studying and learning how to save 
and how to supply. Great Heaven, all that in 



WHY NOT IN AMERICA. 1 65 

Old Britain! With the heavy hands of lords 
and landlords upon them, they have sought and 
found the possible, and made the most of it. 
They have made it bloom and ripen in a land of 
queens and princes. 

In this free land with an organized million now 
ready, more than willing-, half the work and 
study, half the wisdom, and we shall see that a 
Republican Nation does mean Work and Com- 
pensation. 




CHAPTER XLIX. 

THE SECRET. 

Y friend, in political economy there is a 
secret, no author has yet discovered, 
which alone can rob it of its gloominess and 
make it a living science. 

I have concluded to impart to you this secret. 
Take these cards — half red, half black. They 
range in numbers from two up to fourteen. 
They are numbered by spots, save the eleven, 
which is the picture of a knight. They nick- 
name the knight and call him "Jack." The 
twelve spot is the picture of a "Queen." The 
thirteen is a "King." The fourteen, and highest, 
is a "Solitaire." They call this an "Ace." There 
are four each of these thirteen differently num- 
bered cards. Fifty-two in all. These cards, 
simple as they look, and harmless as they appear, 



HIDDEN FORCES. T67 

and meaningless as they would seem, are, never- 
theless, worthy of most patient and careful 
study by anyone who would make political econ- 
omy a practical science. 

You smile; and I supposed you would. 
Nevertheless, I can assure you from great ob- 
servation, that nearly every man, who once did, 
and was capable of doing, a legitimate, prosper- 
ous business, and, left it for speculation, to only 
meet disaster and ruin, followed off these cards. 
That nearly every young man who first gave 
promise, then disappointment, and ruined the 
happiness of mothers and sweethearts, followed 
off these cards. 

Look at these cards. Look them throuo;h. 
Look them over again. Do you discover any 
power in these cards which you would suspect 
would make a healthy boy give up his sweet- 
heart? Still 'tis there. So all along the lines 
of business there are potent hidden forces, in 
shapes least thought of, in forms most simple, 
and, in appearance most innocent, that under- 
mine the natural laws of business and rob com- 
pensation. To these forces, which are fast gain- 
ing control, political economy is blind, and deaf, 
and dumb. It sits on a bare limb with words 



1 68 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

that no more affect the currents of unjust specu- 
lation, than the hooting of the owl affects the 
wind. Unearned wealth is all secured by the 
arts that use such forces as are hidden in these 
cards. Reduce these forces to a science that 
will reach them and control them. Then un- 
earned accumulation will be stopped, and wages 
and earnings will be one and the same, forever. 
Georo^e. — Eureka! Eureka! We have found 
it! We have found it! In the language of the 
miners this is very like prospecting. A man 
may dig and dig and dig and wear himself all 
out and start to leave the diggings and stumble, 
when he least is thinking, on a lead of gold. 



Part IV. 



A BRIEF TALK ON TAXES. 



TAKE ALL TAXES OFF LIFE GIVING, 
SACRED RIGHTS. 



PUT ALL TAXES ON WANT-BREEDING 
SUPERABUNDANCE. 




CHAPTER L. 

A NEW BEGINNING. 

Y friend, yours Is a noble mission. Truly, 
I'm sincere. Failures but begin success. 
'Tis he who sets the powers in motion, deserves 
the highest meed. Your plaintive strains aroused 
the world to women's cries and to litde children's 
moans. You pierced the heart and filled the 
soul of human kind with deep desire and pur- 
pose. You painted scenes so bright and beauti- 
ful that men have looked and seen the forms of 
things that give an inspiration. Men move 
when least they think, and men are moved when 
least they know it. You are the Inspiration, not 
the guide. You have given the world an im- 
pulse, not a method. 

I believe we have the key by which to make 
your book disclose the truth. We want to read 



172 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

it backwards. That is, read the book and find 
the way that it directs, and then take the oppo- 
site direction. Refuse what it commands and 
do what it forbids. In this way, we will learn 
the truth and consummate the thin^-s we most 

o 

desire. This follows, and very naturally, from 
the fact that you started with your back to the 
real cause of all our wrongs, and as you worked, 
you got further and still further away. As 
you thus, all the time, looked not toward but 
away from the real cause, therefore, all your 
remedies lead in the opposite direction from 
what they should. Come with me, my friend. 
You be the inspiration and I wall be the guide, 
and you shall surely see, and sooner than you 
think, the fulfillment of your prophecy. We 
will start just as you say in your book we should 
not start. We will go in the opposite direction 
from what you there direct. We will avoid the 
things you recommend. We will do the very 
things you forbid. Then we will surely reach an 
approximation of the beautiful prospects you so 
graphically describe. Wonders always come in 
wondrous ways. 




CHAPTER LI. 

A TALK ON TAXES. 

Y noble friend, I would like to ask your 
opinion as to taxes, and whether they are 
not real wealth producing- values that are not 
properly considered by the people. For example : 
A father has two sons. One is apt and the 
other is dull. On the apt boy he spends $5,000. 
He eives him a classical education and then 
graduates him at the best law school in the 
country. He was a wise father. With that 
$5,000 he has gained for his boy, a capital that 
no o-ambler can win, no thief can steal, and 
no fire can burn. With this capital the son 
secures, easily, an income of $2,000 to $5,000 
a year. Now, the, same father takes another 
$5,000 and buys the dull boy a farm. That was 
a very wise step. It is not so safe as mental 



174 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

capital, because he may be cheated out of it. 
Still it is quite safe and pays a good living, and 
affords health and enjoyment. Now can there 
be any doubt but the father got for each sum 
full value received for the money expended? 
And, is not each son now in possession of that 
which his father gave him? And, is it not, in 
each case, a producer of wealth? Have they 
not both received a "peculiar and valuable bene- 
fit from society?" The farm increases in value, 
perhaps, |ioo a year. The lawyer's practice 
increases, very likely, $300 a year. The dull 
boy has an annual income of I300, the apt boy 
an income of 13,000. Now, under your rule, the 
dull boy, who has hardly enough to support his 
family, must pay his own taxes and also his apt 
brother's. This, you see, would take the greater 
share of all he receives and leave his family to 
suffer. 

How THE Opposite Works. 

Now, we will do as I said, apply the very op- 
posite of this rule that you have given us. We 
will put no tax on land and tax all other kinds 
of productive wealth, or wealth creating capital. 
Under the opposite rule, the dull boy 



SOCIETY AND TAXES. I 75 

would have his $300, and he and his family 
would live very comfortably. The apt brother 
would pay the taxes of both out of his $3,000 
and have plenty left on which to live like a lord. 
Now, Mr. George, tell us, and be honest about 
it; don't you like what you denounce better than 
what you recommend? 

I would not recommend that all taxes be taken 
off lands. I would take taxes off necessary 
homesteads and tax all wealth producing values. 
Still, you see the very opposite of what you 
recommend is more desirable than what you, 
in fact, propose. 



CHAPTER LII. 
ANOTHER EXAMPLE. 

YOU are not pleased, are you, Mr. George? 
So you think I have played a lawyer on 
you and that it is unfair. Very well, we will 
take another example. We will take a case 
where the lawyer dies. That ought to suit you. 
Here is a book-keeper and a lawyer's widow, 
who live side by side. Each one is the head of 
a family. The widow has a fine $5,000 farm left 
her by her husband, and it affords her an income 
of about 1300 a year. This is all she has with 
which to support herself and her three children. 
The book-keeper has no money at interest, but 
he earns 1 1,000 a year. Now which of these 
two should contribute most to the expense of 
the county's business? Is not the book-keeper 
benefitted more by society and the public busi- 



TAXING MENTAL CAPITAL. 1 77 

ness, than the widow? Is he not possessed of a 
better paying- capital? Is he not better able 
also to contribute? Yes. He has the lareer 
paying fund; he is more benefitted by society, 
and he has more with which to pay. Your law 
would take the bread out of those little orphans' 
mouths. The very opposite would take $50, or, 
perhaps, $100, out of the book-keeper's $1,000, 
and still he would have three times as much left 
for his family, as the widow. 

A railroad manager may have no land capital, 
but still his ability as a manager, may earn him 
1 1 0,000 a year. He Hves like a prince, and his 
family enjoy the luxuries of the land. He owes 
it all to his wealth-producing ability, to society, 
and to the development of the country. He has 
a mine of wealth, and as the business of the 
country grows so his means of wealth grow. 
The plan you give us would let this man enjoy 
his $10,000, and then it would turn around and 
sell the homes of the poor, for taxes. The very 
opposite would take a part of the managers' 
$10,000, but leave more than he needs, and save 
the poor their homes. 




CHAPTER LIII. 

SELLING HOMES FOR TAXES. 

R. GEORGE, come with me again. Sup- 
pose you and I keep a grocery store. 
Now, Francis George — ^no relation — wants credit. 
He looks like an honest man. He is honest. 
All his neighbors say so. He has a job of work 
that will take him all winter. Then he will o-et 
his pay. He is absolutely needing a little credit 
to help him through the winter. He owns a 
good house and lot, but that, they say, is all he 
does own. Trust him? Do you say so? I 
knew you would. You have a great big heart. 
We all know that. "'^ ^ ^' Mr. George, the 
winter is gone. Francis George has not paid. 
Let us go over and see him. He told me, last 
niorht, he had been cheated out of his winter's 
work. I think he lies about it. Let us go for 



STATE VS. CITIZEN. 1 79 

him and seize enough to pay our bill. He owes 
us $100. Let us see, he has only a house and 
lot. Can we sell that? What is the matter? 
You won't go? Tell me why? You don't be- 
lieve in selling homes for debts. You had 
rather lose the bill. All right If you can stand 
it, I can. So we will credit it up to profit and 
loss. 

The State Selling Homes. 
» 
Now, in a day or two, we go over into the 

court house. We see a cluster of all the sharks 
in town. What are they doing? They are en- 
forcing your policy. They are buying tax lands 
from the state. They are just putting up the 
same home that you refused to sell. We wanted 
pay for the food we gave the man and his family. 
Who is putting it up now? The state. Think 
of that. The state is sellino- its own child out of 
house and home. It is enforcing your policy. 
This man was cheated out of his pay. He can't 
pay his quadrupled tax and his home must go. 
This is the inevitable result of your policy. It 
makes every home owner's tax four times as 
great, and sells it, if not paid. You make the 
state do what you would not do yourself. 



l8o WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

The very opposite would sell nobody's home 
whatever. There would be plenty to tax and 
leave everyone a living as exempt. The very 
opposite of your rule would pay our expenses 
out of our superabundance. No one would feel 
it, and everyone paying a tax would have plenty 
left. Gambling, drunkenness, debauchery, prof- 
ligacy, laziness, and all the evils that are the out- 
growth of a worse than useless superabundance, 
would be checked. Changing your rule would 
do oTeat orood at both ends. 



CHAPTER LIV. 
WHY TAX HOMES AT ALL? 



HE world will have to think a long time, 
and read philosophy till it is very tired, 
before it will be able to find any good reason 
for taxing an ordinary and necessary home at 
all. Why tax a man's necessary house any more 
than his family clothing? One may be worth as 
much as the other. Both are needed for pre- 
cisely the same purpose. They are both needed 
to protect the family. The state can't sell the 
clothes off the people's backs. So it don't tax 
them. It ought not to sell homes from over 
people's heads. For that reason it ought not to 
tax homes. It may be said that the state pro- 
tects a man's home. That, therefore, the owner 
ought to pay the state for protection. That will 
never do. It will never do to levy taxes accord- 



1 82 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

ing to protection. That would make the poor 
pay as much as the rich. It would also make a 
man pay a tax on his wife, and on everyone of 
his children; for the state protects them all. So 
I say, the world will look a long time, and a 
long ways, before it will be able to find a single 
reason for putting a public tax on a necessary 
home. All homes, up to a reasonable value, 
should be exempted from taxation. Every man 
who can get a reasonably good home, should be 
permitted to keep it, not only as against his 
creditors, but also as against the state. The 
state would lose nothing. Other people would 
have to pay a trifle more. That's all. 

Suppose in a town there are 1,000 taxpayers. 
A house owner's tax is |io. Now, if he don't 
pay that, each taxpayer must pay i cent more. 
If the house owner owes you, or me, |io, the 
state makes us lose it all, but when it comes to 
making each man in town lose i cent more, it 
refuses to do it. This is "straining at the gnat 
and swallowing the camel." Is it any wonder 
that the poor, who feel these wrongs, cry out 
and welcome other plans. They may not see 
where new suggestions lead. They are willing, 
however, to try most anything. 



CHAPTER LV. 
THE MUNSEE INDIANS. 

SECTION 2310 of United States Revised 
Statutes, provides that the Munsee Indians 
may take homesteads the same as white men. 
That is all right. An Indian can get along with- 
out a home better than a white man. He is bet- 
ter calculated by education, to adapt himself 
to your idea of cropping a piece of land 
and leaving it. Still, a home, I have no 
doubt, would be a comfort even to an Indian. 
So the government did a wise thing in providing 
homes for Indians, as well as white men. Now 
I come to what I want to call attention to. 
The government not only provided that the 
Munsee Indians mi^ht have homesteads, but in 
the next section of the same act, it provided 
that these Indians' homesteads shall not be 



184 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

taxed. Now I find no fault with this, but I do 
insist that the widows and orphans of this land, 
many of whose husbands and fathers died in our 
country's defense, are entitled to as kindly con- 
sideration and care from the government, as are 
the Indians who, when they have fought at all, 
have massacred our people. 

I say more. I say the necessary home of 
every American citizen is just as sacred, and en- 
titled to just as much protection from the gov- 
ernment, as the home of any Indian on earth. 
The government here undertakes to protect the 
Indian because he can't protect himself. Neither 
can the poor home owners protect themselves 
against the tax collector. To keep on making 
the state commit acts of inhumanity, that it forbids 
its own people to commit, is blindly and inex- 
cusably absurd. It forbids selling homes for or- 
dinary debt. Let the state follow the rule it lays 
down for others. If the state desires the love, 
and would reach the hearts of the people, it must 
first show them that it has a heart of its own. 
We want to study these things, and keep our 
public .safeguards apace with the improvements 
of the day. 



CHAPTER LVI. 

ANOTHER SPECIMEN. 

WANT to call your attention to another 
specimen. It shows how our efforts are all 
to get ahead without any proper regard to those 
whom we leave behind. In our crush and craze 
we hurrah for the head horse and let the devil 
look after the hindermost. 

Whenever we make a new tax law, we look 
only to the revenue and not to safeguards. Most 
states either have, or have had, laws permitting 
cities, towns, and townships, to vote aid to rail- 
roads. This is in full sail with our buoyant 
young American ideas. ''Let the majority rule," 
says Mr. Lawjaw. "Certainly, if a man don't 
want to help the town, let him move out. on the 
prairie," responds Mr. Boodle. Mr. Lawjaw's 
eloquence and Mr. Boodle's "influence" carries 



1 86 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

the tax. Mr. Lawjaw calls on Mr. Boodle and 
is "congratulated." He walks away from Mr. 
Boodle's office with a very light heart. His tax 
does not at all oppress him. 

The business men of the town expect a bene- 
fit and are directly interested. Home owners, 
however, are not. That is, not as mere home 
owners. Homes give no more shelter, no more 
comfort, and homes are no better after the addi- 
tional third railroad, than when the town had 
but two. They who own business, are directly 
interested and the business property ought to 
pay the tax. Instead of that, however, poor 
people's homes are taxed, and many of them 
sold, to pay the cost of an investment made in 
the interest of business men. 

Of this same nature are taxes on homes for 
the improvement of business streets; for water- 
works to reduce insurance on business stocks; 
and all taxes whereby business is directly and 
largely benefited and homes only remotely and 
in a smaller degree. 

In these things we are much at fault. We 
want to study these matters and improve them, 
and make them worthy the advanced age in 
which we live. 



CHAPTER LVII. 

ONE QUESTION MORE. 

WAS going to bid you good night, Mr. 
George, and talk to some other people, but 
I want to ask just one question more. Don't 
you really think it would be fairer if all our taxes 
were paid out of our superabundant increase of 
wealth? After paying all expenses we lay by, 
each year, an accumulation of $1,000,000,000. 
We averaged that between 1870 and 1880. 
Would there not be a real justice in making 
wealth pay the expense of its increase out of its 
superabundance? Could there be any possible 
injustice in that? No, I thought you would say 
so. It would not produce a particle of hardship, 
would it? I thought you would say so. Now, 
tell me, what objection you can offer to making 
the wealth of the country, pay the expense of 



1 88 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

its superabundance ? Why do you prefer a tax 
on people's homes? 

Geo7'ge. — A tax upon land values can, of all 
taxes, be most easily and cheaply collected; for 
land cannot be hidden or carried off. 

Work. — Well, well! Is that your reason? 
Twenty billion dollars are hidden away! Twenty 
billion dollars hidden away!! That's it. The 
miserly rich grab more than they need and hide 
it away. They hide |20,ooo,ooo,ooo. There is 
only 1 10,000,000,000 of land — 1 10,000,000,000 in 
farms. Now, just because the ^20,000,000,000 
are hidden, you propose to make the 1 10,000,- 
000,000 suffer. I really supposed you would 
give a better reason. 

Again, the very opposite of what you pre- 
scribe, would be better. The opposite would 
make these rich misers bring out their gold and 
count it before the world. It would take this 
hidden, unused, useless wealth and pay all taxes, 
and spare the poor their homes. 

Mr. George, I thank you for this chat. We 
will talk again. Now, if you will excuse me, I 
will talk to some other people. 



CHAPTER LVIII. 

ADAM SMITH. 

UR civilization is the highest in the world. 
Bismarck said, recently, when confronted 
with the better condition of English labor: 
"Enp-land has a civilization two centuries older 
than ours." We began two centuries ago with 
England's civilization. England then was at the 
head of the civilized world. We, however, by 
revolution, have outstripped our mother country. 
So we stand above all. Our light shines out. 
"Liberty Enlightening the World." I say we 
are in tax matters where we were a hundred years 
ago. Now let us go back a hundred years. Let 
us take the best of that day and improve it. In 
that way we can make it compare with our 
times. 

A hundred and ten years ago, Adam Smith 



190 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

gave the world his -'Wealth of Nations." (That 
was the year of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence.) The "Wealth of Nations" is to political 
economy what Shakspeare is to literature. Let 
us see what he says as to the philosophy of tax- 
ation. Here it is: 

"The expense of government to the individ- 
uals of a great nation, is like the expense of 
management of the joint tenants of a great 
estate." 

That brings taxes down to a simple matter of 
business. It is simply a business transaction 
between joint tenants of the same common- 
wealth. There is not only good Scotch sense 
in this, but there is also remarkably good United 
States sense. 

Now, tenants in common, of an estate, would 
not encumber each others houses with the ex- 
pense of managing the estate, so long as there 
was anything else to spare. Because they 
could spare anything else better. They would 
mortgage the income. If need be, they would 
mortgage the hogs, or the cattle, or the horses. 
If all these where insufficient, they would mort- 
gage some land outside their home lots. They 
would encumber everything else before endan- 



A SIMPLE, SENSIBLE RULE. IQI 

o-erino- their homes. Why? Because it would 
be right. The home ought not to go till every 
other kind of property is gone. It is most 
needed. It is most sacred. In parting with 
property we let that go first which we need 
least, and we hold till the last that which we 
need most. Therefore, we ought to endanger 
that first which we can part with most easily, and 
not endanger what we most need. 

Now, joint tenants of a joint estate, would fol- 
low these natural, sensible, just rules. Then 
why should not the citizens of a great state, or a 
nation, do the same thing? If they would 
adopt these common, plain rules that are ap- 
proved by authority, and which accord with 
reason and experience, there never would be 
a tax levied on an ordinary necessary home. It 
should all be put, so far as practical, on the 
superabundance that can be spared as well as 
not. The superabundance that corrupts and 
ruins so many men. 



CHAPTER LIX. 

WHY NOT TAX WEALTH'S INCREASE? 

ET us look at this tax business just as we 
^ j would the management of an estate by 



tenants in common. A year passes by and the 
tenants figure their matters up. They find that 
their expenses have been 15,000. They also 
find that there is an income of 1 10,000. Now, 
how shall the expenses be paid? There is not a 
child of ordinary understanding, anywhere, but 
could understand the question and answer it cor- 
rectly. Every one would say "Pay it out of the 
income, pay the expenses out of the proceeds." 
Now, the increase of the productive wealth of 
this country, from 1870 to 1880, paid all expenses 
of every kind, and still left an accumulated in- 
crease of 11,000,000,000. Now, I ask, if we are 
to treat taxes as an ordinary business matter, 



A JUST BASIS OF TAXATION. 1 93 

then why should we not provide that taxes be 
paid out of the increase of productive wealth, 
and out of luxuries? Of course, it might not be 
possible to attain exact justice, but would we not 
be more likely to approximate justice if we 
adopt a just basis, than if we continue on a 
wholly unjust basis? If we start out to tax only 
the increase of productive wealth, then every 
piece of crop or pasture land, either improved 
or unimproved, would be taxed, and it ought to 
be. That is productive wealth, and is constantly 
increasino- in value. To tax that would be busi- 
ness. Luxuriant homes and luxurious induleences 
would be taxed. But necessary and ordinary 
homes, churches and schools, would not be taxed 
because they are not productive wealth. Nor are 
necessary homes, churches and schools luxuries. 
Every dollar in money, every note and mortgage, 
every certificate of stock, every bond, every 
railroad, every thing that earns money, would 
be taxed, and that would be business. Taxes 
would be just as certain as now. They would 
be paid always with that which could be most 
easily spared. No one would have the clothes 
sold off his back nor his house sold from over 
his head. 




CHAPTER LX. 

TO ENGLAND AGAIN. 

E adopted England's laws and improved 
them in many respects. Not, however, 
in every respect. Let us go to England again. 
England has improved on Adam Smith's methods 
of taxation and has made them to more nearly 
conform to his philosophy. England nearly fifty 
years ago, enacted a law taxing incomes 5 
pence on every pound. Let me see. Have I 
forgotten the tables? Twelve pence make a 
shilling and twenty shillings a pound; if I rightly 
remember. That would make 240 pence in a 
pound, and 5 pence is a little over 2 per cent, of 
240 pence. So England, for fifty years, has 
counted the increase of the rich and taxed it 60 
per cent. That, now, produces about one-sixth 
of Great Britain's entire revenue. The home 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 1 95 

owners of Eneland are relieved that much. 
Why one-sixth of our taxes would leave every 
American home, worth less than $2,000, entirely 
free. Wouldn't that be grand? 

Durino- the war of the rebellion, when the coun- 
try wanted more revenue, we went to England 
again for a law and improved it. Mr. Lincoln and 
Mr. Chase were both lawyers. They knew of 
Eneland's income tax law and how well it had 
worked. So they put their heads together. In 
the first place they exempted |6oo of every in- 
come. That looks just like Abraham Lincoln. 
He never wanted to leave any man without a 
good living. Then they exempted rental values 
of homesteads. There again we see the heart 
of the great Lincoln. He wanted every man to 
have a home, and he wanted that home made 
sacred aeainst even a tax collector, in time of 
war. Over |6oo and up to $5,000, every income 
was taxed 5 per cent.; over 15,000, 10 per cent. 
There was Lincoln. He may not have drafted 
the law, but he approved it. It was a great im- 
provement on the English law. 



CHAPTER LXI. 
DR. CHAPIN. 

AARON L. CHAPIN, president of Beloit 
College, is one of the most conservative 
of the advanced thinkers and writers on political 
economy. He exposes the fallacies of the im- 
agined wage fund, and takes advanced ground 
all along the line, but he clings to first principles 
with all the faith and hope that a Christian clings 
to the cross of his Savior. In speaking of in- 
come taxes, in his revision of Dr. Wayland's 
work, he says: 

"Actual experience under the law, tended to 
relieve difficulties and objections. When most 
efficiently carried out, concealment and dishon- 
esty were not, probably, greater under this form 
of tax, than are practiced continually under the 
attempts of the states to levy taxes on miscella- 
neous personal property." 



JUSTICE OF INCOME TAXATION. 1 97 

Dr. Chapin sees the #20,000,000,000 that, as 
Mr. George says, are hidden away. He thinks 
it is wrong. He thinks the $10,000,000,000 in- 
vested in farms, should pay no more than its just 
share. 

John Stuart Mill also admits the justice of the 
law and says that, theoretically, it touches each 
man according to his ability to pay; but, Mr. 
Mill, after pronouncing an income tax the least 
objectionable, in principle, of all taxes, says that 
they are difficult to assess and collect, and 
should, therefore, "be reserved as an extraordi- 
nary resource for great national emergencies, in 
which the necessities of a large additional reve- 
nue overrules all objections." 

Income Taxation Effective. 

This reasoning seems somewhat at fault. If 
the tax is right, in principle, what objection can 
there be to it? And if, in war, or other great 
emergency, it can be made to produce large ad- 
ditional revenue, then is not that proof positive 
that the tax is effective as well as right? Again, 
if it can be made effective in times of war, when 
the enereies of a nation are divided and dis- 
tracted, could it not be made much more effect- 



198 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

ive and satisfactory in ordinary times when a 
nation is at peace and its energies all available? 
England ignored Mr. Mill's objections and en- 
acted the law. All England is delighted with it, 
and, especially, England's home owners. 

All the objections that are made to an income 
tax, are those that come from taxpayers who 
make a business of hiding their taxable property 
from the assessor. It is dishonest, and a mere 
quibble to avoid bearing a due and proper share 
of the expenses of the public business which 
pays them a profit. The state can never expect 
a proper standard until it establishes it by law, 
and this it should do at once. 



CHAPTER LXII. 
WHY OPPOSED. 

AMERICA Is the last country that should 
oppose a good measure simply because it 
is a little difficult. Had this been the policy of 
our fathers we would not, to-day, • be "Liberty 
Enlightening the World." It would have been a 
great deal easier to have submitted, than to have 
fought for liberty. Our fathers died in a difficulty 
that promised their children better days. 

Was the war for the Union abandoned be- 
cause the rebellion was hard to put down? Does 
anyone suppose that this country can be brought 
easily to a basis of compensation? Can vice be 
easily repressed, or wickedness easily overcome? 
Is it not difficult to get men to expose their per- 
sonal property? That is just as difficult to as- 
sess, says Dr. Chapin, as incomes. Income 



200 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

taxation is no more difficult than any other kind 
of special taxation. It requires work. It 
requires effort and persevering- effort. If wisely 
provided so as first to exempt a living and then, 
gradually, increase with the income, it is the one 
tax that exactly accords with justice and with 
business experience. A living for all is a part of 
the nation's just expense. This tax lets each 
man, first, pay this individual expense of living, 
then it takes the common expense out of the 
balance, and leaves the net increase untouched. 
No man on earth, who desires to be fair, or just, 
can oppose this tax. To oppose it, because of 
fancied difficulty, is both lazy and cowardly. 
Let no one be deceived. The rich are afraid of 
this just tax. They are afraid of the manner in 
which it will expose their gains. England's rich 
men can stand it; but ours tremble when they 
contemplate the prospect of having to lay bare 
to the world, from year to year, the increase of 
their wealth. Yes, and more; they are afraid of 
its power. It has no limit. It is the one and 
only power by which the people can take 
directly from the rich alone, and relieve the 
poor. It is the one and only method by which 
the public can take the pig by the ear. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

BY WHOM OPPOSED. 

INCOLN and Chase, both of whom were 
j among the greatest of lawyers, statesmen, 



and friends of humanity, gave us an income 
tax law. The Supreme Court sustained it. It 
was the one law that oppressed nobody. In 
1867, there were a half million, nearly, who paid 
an income tax. The income tax for that year, 
amounted to $60,000,000. That showed that in- 
comes could be counted. 

Now, in 1872, that just tax was repealed. 
Why? Was it because it was so difficult to en- 
force? No; for that would have repealed the 
whisky tax at the same time. The government, 
however, put guards over every distillery in the 
country. These guards, virtually, took posses- 
sion of the business. They took charge of the 



202 WORK AND COMPENSATION. 

corn as it was bought. They weighed it as it 
went to the distillery. They watched it through 
every process. They measured the whisky as it 
came out. Then they watched it as it lay in the 
warehouse. And, when later the distilleries 
combined to buy up these guards, and hide their 
whisky away, Grant said, "Let no guilty man 
escape." From Kentucky to Milwaukee, gov- 
ernment lightning struck the whisky thieves, and 
they held up their hands and begged for mercy. 
Oh, Uncle Sam can shake the devil, and shake 
him good, when the devil is not in Uncle Sam. 
Now, in 1872, this just, equitable, and un- 
exceptionable income tax was repealed. 
Was it because we were getting more revenue 
than we wanted. No; we don't gauge our reve- 
nue to simply meet expenses. We never did 
that. Then why was it repealed? Let us see — 
1872. When was it that our congressmen got 
so mixed up in stocks? When was it that 
Horace Greeley, Charles Sumner, and so many 
of the founders of the Repubhcan party, became 
alarmed at the venality of public affairs? When 
was it that Oakes Ames made those memorable 
memoranda in that memorable . pass book? 
When was it that Schuyler Colfax met political 



REPEAL OF THE INCOME TAX. 203 

death; and Garfield was embarrassed; and the 
president was presented with gifts, 1 100,000 at a 
time? When was it that pubhc men wanted to 
hide away their incomes and keep them from 
being counted before the world ? Then it was 
that the best xA.merican tax law ever enacted, 
was repealed. Is it unkind to speak of it? I 
shall not do so to be unkind. I myself was a 
private soldier in the Union army. I love the 
very name of Grant. God bless the memory of 
him who did so much for his country, and suf- 
fered so much at the hands of its statesmen. 
Did history ever present a more pitiable picture 
than the Great Grant, pauperized by gambling 
speculation, being offered alms to save his home? 
If w^e don't begin to count the incomes of the 
rich aeain, as Lincoln did, and as Enorland now 
does, and learn to stop these gambling specula- 
tions, they may make paupers of us all. Let 
us count these incomes. "Let no guilty man 
(who hides his gold,) escape." 



CHAPTER LXIV. 

IN STATES. 

HIS taxing of incomes should be adopted 
by states as well as the nation. Whoever 
says it can't be done knows better and, intention- 
ally, asserts the untrue for the purpose of a 
cheat. What England can do, and has done for 
forty-five years, we can do. American citizens 
are just as much entitled to a perfectly just 
method of taxation as are the citizens of Great 
Britain. 

In 1866, there were half a million, nearly, 
who paid an income tax. It was a little less 
than one in fifty. Shall one in fifty, or one in 
forty, or one, even, in ten, from selfish consider- 
ations, prevent the whole people from the adop- 
tion of the most just method, and thus deprive 
them of its benefits? It means no revolution. 
Nor even any embarrassment. I understand the 



INCOME TAXES PRACTICAL. 205 

necessity of a stable, certain revenue. The 
state, each year, must have a reasonably certain 
revenue. Therefore, an income tax, the amount 
of which could only be approximated, would 
need, perhaps, to be commenced a year before 
the other taxes were much reduced. The income 
tax, could, if so preferred, be given half to the 
counties and half to the state. When one year's 
revenue was paid, then in the next assess- 
ment, reductions in other taxes could be made. 
In this way the stability of the' revenues would, 
in no wise, be affected. Thus in one year, or 
two, or three, perhaps, a perfectly just and busi- 
ness like tax could be had to entirely relieve and 
take the place of the cruel, inhuman and un- 
christian tax that sells poor people's houses from 
over their heads. In the name of God and 
humanity, let this be done. Let America, that 
has given to the world the sweetest song of 
home that ever was sung, stop putting yearly 
mortgages on the homes of her children. Let 
us put a little business justice into our public 
tax, and a little more warm blood into the 
public heart. Let the state be as humane to 
its children as it would desire its children 
should be unto each other. 



NOTE. 

Illness, while the foregoing was in press, pre- 
vented the author from reading the proof sheets. 
A few mistakes occur. "Greater" in one place 
is printed "greatest;" "2 per cent." is printed 
''60 per cent.;" "proposition," I see, appears 
"proportion;" and "wake" as "make;" and I 
now notice several similar mistakes. They are 
all apparent, however, and will not mislead the 
reader, and, therefore, no "Errata" is printed. 

P. M. S. 



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